BACKGROUND: Haynaldia villosa (H. villosa) has been recognized as a species potentially useful for wheat improvement. The availability of its genomic sequences will boost its research and application. RESULTS: In this work, the short arm of H. villosa chromosome 4V (4VS) was sorted by flow cytometry and sequenced using Illumina platform. About 170.6 Mb assembled sequences were obtained. Further analysis showed that repetitive elements accounted for about 64.6% of 4VS, while the coding fraction, which is corresponding to 1977 annotated genes, represented 1.5% of the arm. The syntenic regions of the 4VS were searched and identified on wheat group 4 chromosomes 4AL, 4BS, 4DS, Brachypodium chromosomes 1 and 4, rice chromosomes 3 and 11, and sorghum chromosomes 1, 5 and 8. Based on genome-zipper analysis, a virtual gene order comprising 735 gene loci on 4VS genome was built by referring to the Brachypodium genome, which was relatively consistent with the scaffold order determined for Ae. tauschii chromosome 4D. The homologous alleles of several cloned genes on wheat group 4 chromosomes including Rht-1 gene were identified. CONCLUSIONS: The sequences provided valuable information for mapping and positional-cloning genes located on 4VS, such as the wheat yellow mosaic virus resistance gene Wss1. The work on 4VS provided detailed insights into the genome of H. villosa, and may also serve as a model for sequencing the remaining parts of H. villosa genome.
