A Draft Genome Sequence of Tartary Buckwheat, Fagopyrum tataricum

Since the publication of first plant genome in 2000, plant genomics has made a significant progress. However many evolutionary lineages of plants, as well as many economically important plants remain underrepresented in terms of genomic data. We report here the draft genome sequence of tartary buckwheat – Fagopyrum tataricum. This plant is a member of plant order Caryophyllales and a close relative of common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), an important non-cereal crop. Draft genome sequence of Fagopyrum tataricum was generated using Illumina technology. The total number of bases included in the assembly is 372 Mb, that corresponds to 70% of the genome. Nearly 30 thousands of genes were predicted using cDNA-based, homology-based and ab initio approaches. A number of taxon-specific gene duplications, as well as genes specific to the buckwheat genome were found. Using transcriptome sequence data, we investigated the changes of expression profiles during different abiotic stress treatments and found genes up- and downregulated by stress conditions. We expect that these data will promote buckwheat breeding and improvement as well as establishment of buckwheat as a new model species for Caryophyllales.