Draft Genome Sequence of European Pear (Pyrus communis L)

Bud mutation makes morphological differences in a part of a plant (e.g. shoot, leaf and fruit) from the rest of the plant. When a desirable character was observed, it is possible to form a new cultivar by growing it from cuttings. European pear (Pyrus communis L) occasionally produces massive fruits by the mutation at only one branch of the tree. It is important to determine the mechanism to produce massive fruits stably. Because the genetic background between a bud sport and the rest of branches are identical, we are trying to elucidate the mechanism by comparing their genome, transcriptome and metabolome.

In this study, using its genomic DNA, we obtained paired end (approximately 123 Gb), 3K (approximately 30 Gb) and 10K (approximately 26 Gb) mate-pair reads produced by the Illumina HiSeq platform, and these reads were assembled by using an assembler program ALLPATHs-LG. As a result, we obtained 95,285 contigs and 19,906 scaffolds. The estimated genome size was approximately 455 Mb, and its average GC content was 37.6 %. We also predicted its genes by using gene-prediction program AUGUSTUS. The results of this analysis will be a basis for our future research.

This work is supported partly by the Program for Promotion of Basic and Applied Researches for Innovations in Bio-oriented Industry.