Rapid development of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) techniques has led biology into the "big-data" era. Data analysis using various bioinformatics softwares or pipelines relying on programming and command-line environment is challenging and time-consuming for most wet-lab biologists. Bioinformatics tools with a user-friendly interface are preferred. Here, we present TBtools (a Toolkit for Biologists integrating various biological data handling tools), a stand-alone software with a user-friendly interface. It has powerful data handling engines for both bulk sequence processing and interactive data visualization. It includes a large collection of functions, which may facilitate much simple, routine but elaborate work on biological data, such as bulk sequence extraction, gene set enrichment analysis, Venn diagram preparation, heatmap illustration, comparative sequence visualization, etc. Availability and implementation:TBtools is a platform-independent software that can be run under all operating systems with Java Runtime Environment 1.

18The rapid development of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) techniques has led biology into 19 the big-data era. Data analyses using various bioinformatics tools rely on programming and 20 command-line environments, which are challenging and time-consuming for most wet-lab 21biologists. Here, we present TBtools (a Toolkit for Biologists integrating various biological data 22

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Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is a major crop and a member of the large, highly successful Compositae family of flowering plants. Here we present a reference assembly for the species and family. This was generated using whole-genome shotgun Illumina reads plus in vitro proximity ligation data to create large superscaffolds; it was validated genetically and superscaffolds were oriented in genetic bins ordered along nine chromosomal pseudomolecules. We identify several genomic features that may have contributed to the success of the family, including genes encoding Cycloidea-like transcription factors, kinases, enzymes involved in rubber biosynthesis and disease resistance proteins that are expanded in the genome. We characterize 21 novel microRNAs, one of which may trigger phasiRNAs from numerous kinase transcripts. We provide evidence for a whole-genome triplication event specific but basal to the Compositae. We detect 26% of the genome in triplicated regions containing 30% of all genes that are enriched for regulatory sequences and depleted for genes involved in defence.