Brassica species are important crops, providing a major source of cooking oil, vegetables and condiments in many countries. The relationship between the cultivated Brassicas is described by the “triangle of U”: the three amphidiploid species B. juncea (AABB, 2n=36), B. napus (AACC, 2n=38) and B. carinata (BBCC, 2n=34) formed through interspecific hybridisation between the diploid species B. rapa (AA, 2n=20), B. nigra (BB, 2n=16) and B. oleracea (CC, 2n=18). Brassicas are closely related to the model species Arabidopsis thaliana, whose genome sequence was published in 2000.
Brassica species include weedy types and cultivated varieties with broad phenotypic plasticity, from root vegetables such as turnip and leafy forms such as Chinese cabbage to oilseed varieties.
As well as the economic reasons for studying Brassica genomes, through improvements in vegetable and oilseed crops, they also provide a model for studying the effects of polyploidisation and of extreme morphological diversity in plants.
This site hosts Brassica pangenome viewers, genome browsers and data downloads — see Databases.