10KP: 10,000 Plant Genomes Project


The 10,000 plants (tenKP or 10KP) aims to sequence over 10,000 genomes representing every major clade of plants and eukaryotic microbes. This project would generate large-scale plant genome data within the next five years (2017-2022), addressing fundamental questions about plant evolution. Major supporters include Beijing Genomics Institute in Shenzhen (BGI-Shenzhen) and China National Gene Bank (CNGB). BGI corporate will support this project by developing new tools for de novo genome sequencing and assembly on MGISEQ platforms.

The announcement of the 10KP Project was published on July 27, 2017, 8:00 AM in Science. The establishment of this project is built on the success of the 1000 plants project, which was sampling phylogenetic diversity, not just crops and model organisms. The 10KP project would continue this strategy, and acquire new genome sequence information from the entire plant kingdom. For land plants, there are in total over 380,000 species, 26,700 genus from about 667 families, which are mostly from non-flowering plants (mosses, liverworts, hornworts, monilophytes/ferns, lycopodiophyte, gymnosperm, etc.) and flowering plants (magnoliids, basal angiosperms (ANA Grade), monocots/grasses, asterids, and rosid, etc.). For microbial eukaryotes, major attentions will focus on macro-/micro-algae and phototrophic-/heterotrophic protists.

The 10KP Project will be a key part of the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), an ambitious scheme to get at least rough sequence data from 1.5 million eukaryotic species. Currently the 10KP is open to receive plant samples from the world. The sample selection was based on a series of overlapping sub-projects with scientific objectives that could be addressed by the sequencing of multiple plant species. We are honored and looking forward to your participation!

Online submission


Please register your personal account through the CNGB Login System (automatic guided to registration when you click the new submission button below).

Provide all the information required for 10KP sample submission via a web-form including

  • 1. the basic information about the provider,
  • 2. taxonomy of the plant species,
  • 3. sample information (sample type & tissue type),
  • 4. sample quality (concentration & OD value) and other information.

The administrator would review your submission and get back to you as soon as possible.

New Submission

Species distribution and Phylogenetic Diversity


10KP aims to sequence a member of every genus, including flowering plants (329,843 species, 20,785 genera, 419 families) and non-flowering plants (50,003 species, 2,777 genera, 248 families). In addition, about 4,000 eukaryotic microbes will be selected. Species distribution across different clades of the ombrophytes (land plants).

The top 20 largest families of land plants


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Q & A + more


Q:How much and what kind of sequencing is being offered?

A:The goal is to sequence 10,000 biodiverse species over the next 5 years. This means high quality de novo genomes and, to the extent that live tissues are available, transcriptomes as well.

Q: What kind of species will be sequenced?

A:About 6000 of these species will be embryophytes (land plants) and about 4000 will be eukaryotic microbes (both photosynthetic and heterotrophic protists).

Q: How will the data be released and what are the constraints?

A:Once every 3 months we will evaluate the quality of the assemblies, determine which are usable based on several tiers of usability (e.g. scaffolds bigger than average gene, scaffolds bigger than average syntenic block). The sequences and annotations will be made publicly accessible through the CNGB website and there will be a GigaScience paper for users to cite if they should publish using this data. As a reward for collaborating with us, sample providers will be given one month exclusive access.

Major Supporters