Defining the fine scale recombination landscape of the oilseed rape genome

My PhD project aims to define the recombination landscape in Brassica napus (oilseed rape) by identifying the position and frequency of meiotic crossovers and investigating their association with genetic, genomic or epigenomic patterns. Diverse resources are available, such as two large multi-parental populations (MPPs), recombinant inbred lines (RILs) or epigenomic datasets. For the first part of the project, I used the SNP data from the MPPs to target recombination events that happened in the parental lines by comparing the parental genotypes with the genotypes of the offspring. Given the lack of suitable software to perform this task, I developed haploMAGIC, a pipeline that performs better than other similar software with data from this type of population. The RILS will enable increasing the resolution of the crossovers detected with this program. Previous research on the recombination landscape in Brassica napus is rather limited. The outcome of this research could assist breeders develop strategies to increase genetic diversity in rapeseed by controlling meiotic recombination.