Since the vast majority of domesticated varieties of banana are related to one or two wild species, scientists have not one but two genomes to look at; Musa acuminata which donated the so-called A genome and Musa balbisiana the B genome. As a prelude to sequencing the banana genome, the DNA of M. acuminata and M. balbisiana plants was duplicated and broken into smaller pieces that are easier to handle.

These DNA fragments were inserted into bacteria for safe keeping as Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes (BACs). Consortium members have developed five BAC libraries: one of M. balbisiana and four of acuminata. The BAC libraries are freely available to the research community through the Musa Genome Resources Centre, hosted by the Institute of Experimental Botany in the Czech Republic. 

Current status of Musa sequencing genome

Sequencing complete, BAC Clones

• Whole genome sequencing is underway at genoscope
• Sequencing of 64 marker-selected BAC clones (BAC Sequencing Statistics) from M. acuminata 'Calcutta 4', M. balbisiana 'PKW' and M. acuminata 'Grande naine' (JCVI, EMBRAPA, UCB, NIAS, KUL, Bioversity CIRAD)
• 454 : 100 Mb (IEB)
• Solexa  (AIEA)

Sequencing BAC ends

• Sequencing of 3,100 BAC ends from M. acuminata 'Calcutta 4' and M. balbisiana 'PKW' (TIGR, IAEA)
• Sequencing of 23,060 BAC ends from M. acuminata 'DH Pahang' (PRI)

Sequencing EST

• Approximately 100 000 ESTs (EST sequencing statistic) are available from various centers (Embrapa, UCB, JCVI, NIAS, IITA, Cirad) from different cDNA libraries

Reduced representation sequencing

• Sequencing low-copy ('genic') part of the Musa genome (IEB, KUL)
• Sequencing the repeat portion of the Musa genome (IEB, TIGR)