Abstract: With the rapid development of sequencing technology and bioinformatic analytic tools, and the reduction of sequencing cost, the studies of plant genomes has grown in an unprecedent speed. Lauraceae belong to Magnoliids and contain high species diversity in pantropics. Species of this family are mostly woody and economically and ecologically important. Up to now, 13 genomes belonging to eight species have been published in the family Lauraceae. Here, we review the recent advances on nuclear genomes of Lauraceae from four aspects: an overview of published nuclear genomes, characteristics of genomes of Lauraceae, evolution and phylogeny, function genes and gene families. We highlight the recent achievements in phylogeny of magnoliids and Lauraceae based on genomic data, whole genome duplication events, and function genes / gene families of Lauraceae related to the floral organ determination and metabolites. Based on recent advances and problems of genomic studies of Lauraceae, we propose four promising directions for further studies of the family: (1) investigating genome characteristics of the family with extensive sampling; (2) increasing the representation of species sampling in all major clades, e.g. at the tribal level; (3) tackling species with special value, e.g. Laurus nobilis etc.; (4) exploring function genes of various aspects.

Key words: Lauraceae, evolution, nuclear genome, function gene, phylogeny