About TWCG

A seedless triploid fruit mulberry, and a standout resource for disease-resistance breeding.

Origin: an AAB triploid

TWCG is a seedless triploid arising from an interspecific cross between long-fruited mulberry (Morus laevigata) and white mulberry (M. alba). Of its three haplotypes, HapA1 and HapA2 derive from M. laevigata, while HapB derives from M. alba.

Superpower: complete immunity

TWCG is fully immune to the necrotrophic fungus Ciboria shiraiana, the causal agent of hypertrophic sorosis sclerote disease (HSS). Dissecting this immunity offers new strategies for molecular breeding of crops resistant to necrotrophic fungi.

Value: food and medicine

Mulberry fruit is rich in anthocyanins, rutin, resveratrol and polysaccharides, and is regarded as one of the outstanding functional fruits of the 21st century. Fruit-use mulberry still covers only 5–9% of mulberry acreage in China, with disease being the main barrier to expansion.

Morus laevigataLong-fruited mulberry Morus albaWhite mulberry TWCGAAB triploid
Taiwan Changguosang (TWCG) long mulberry bearing healthy elongated fruits on the tree
"Taiwan Changguosang" (TWCG, AAB allotriploid) — healthy elongated fruits on the tree. This variety is fully immune to Ciboria shiraiana.
White mulberry (Morus alba) fruits showing hypertrophic sorosis sclerote disease after Ciboria shiraiana infection
White mulberry (Morus alba) — fruits showing typical hypertrophic sorosis sclerote (HSS) symptoms after Ciboria shiraiana infection.

Genome Overview

A highly contiguous, highly complete, gap-free haplotype-resolved assembly.

Tool Center

Browse, align, search and profile the TWCG haplotype-resolved genome, and predict effectors from fungal secretomes. Each tool opens with a link back to this page.

Gene Search
TWCG Annotation API
Look up genes by ID or functional keyword (product / GO / KEGG) and inspect their annotation.
Open tool
BLAST
SequenceServer
Run sequence similarity searches against TWCG genomes, CDS and protein sets, plus Botrytis cinerea B05.10 and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum 1980 proteomes.
Open tool
HMMER
HMMER 3.4 · Pfam-A
Search homologs (phmmer), annotate protein domains (hmmscan) or mine gene families (hmmsearch) across TWCG, C. shiraiana, B. cinerea, S. sclerotiorum and related proteomes.
Open tool
MSA Viewer
In-browser progressive alignment · BLOSUM62
Align 2–30 protein sequences and visualize conserved columns, conservation bars and pairwise identity. Runs entirely in your browser.
Open tool
EffectorP 3.0
Ensemble ML · fungi & oomycetes
Predict apoplastic and cytoplasmic effectors in fungal / oomycete secretomes, with soft-voting probabilities.
Open tool
Genome Browser
JBrowse 2
Interactively browse the three TWCG haplotypes, gene models and variant sites.
Open tool
Expression Atlas
RNA-seq TPM matrix
Profile TPM across 10 samples: stem, leaf, bud and seven fruit stages F1–F7.
Open tool
Functional Enrichment
clusterProfiler · GO & KEGG
Test a gene list for over-represented GO terms (BP / MF / CC) and KEGG pathways, with fold-enrichment, corrected p-values and the intersecting genes.
Open tool
Debugging
KEGG Pathway
KEGG Orthology · maps drawn locally
Browse KEGG pathways across the three TWCG haplotypes, and draw any map locally from KEGG coordinates — coloured by KO presence or by expression.
Open tool
Hormone Network
Literature-anchored · KEGG KO & Pfam
Explore crosstalk among the nine plant hormone pathways, the KEGG branch reactions, the transport proteins and the direct protein–protein interactions — every node anchored to real TWCG annotation, every gap declared.
Open tool
Defense Pathways
Literature-anchored · PTI / ETI / SA–JA
Explore six plant immune pathways — PTI, MAPK cascades, ETI & NLR, SA, SA–JA crosstalk and the Sclerotinia/Ciboria spotlight — with TWCG haplotype homologs and female-flower infection expression on every node.
Open tool

Research Team & Data Availability

The genome was produced by the State Key Laboratory of Resource Insects, Southwest University and collaborating groups.

Authors (#equal contribution)

Wei Fan#, Yuane Chen#, Mengxia Xu#, Zhongqiang Xia, Chengli Zhou, Caiquan Tao, Zhennan Li, Duanyang Liu, Xiaohui Gu, Xiling Wang, Zhiguang Song, Zhengang Li, Aichun Zhao*

* Corresponding author: zhaoaichun@hotmail.com · zhaoaichun@swu.edu.cn

Affiliations

  • State Key Laboratory of Resource Insects, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
  • Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, China
  • Institute of Sericulture and Apiculture, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Mengzi, China
  • Chongqing Sericulture Science and Technology Research Institute, Chongqing, China

Fan W, Chen Y, Xu M, et al. AAB allotriploid cultivated mulberry genome, Disease resistance. (manuscript V3)