Towards plant pangenomics

As an increasing number of genome sequences become available for a wide range of species,there is a growing understanding that the genome of a single individual is insufficient torepresent the gene diversity within a whole species. Many studies examine the sequence diversitywithin genes, and this allelic variation is an important source of phenotypic variation which canbe selected for by man or nature. However, the significant gene presence/absence variation that has been observed within species and the impact of this variation on traits is only now beingstudied in detail. The sum of the genes for a species is termed the pangenome, and thedetermination and characterization of the pangenome is a requirement to understand variationwithin a species. In this review, we explore the current progress in pangenomics as well asmethods and approaches for the characteriza tion of pangenomes for a wide range of plantspecies.