Role of structural variation in heterosis in faba bean

Faba bean is one of the most important legume crops in the world. It is highly nutritious because of the high protein content as well as a good source of minerals, vitamins, and numerous bioactive compounds. It also has a large diploid genome size of 13 Gb distributed on six chromosomes which contains abundant repetitive DNA sequences. Considering the numerous advantages of the crop and challenges imposed by its genome size and complexity, one of my goals is to detect structural variation in faba Bean and implement affordable and low-cost structural variant calling in breeding processes. Structural variants can play a vital role in agronomically important traits, including heterosis, for which the molecular mechanism is not fully understood. My project will focus on elucidating the role of structural variation on the formation of heterosis in yield contributing traits of faba bean.