The first draft genome sequence of Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia L.) in Iran

Abstract

Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia L.) is a native tree species of Iran and the Caucasus region growing in both wild habitats and cultivated settings. The area under cultivation of this tree has been increasing in recent years due to its ability to withstand drought and soil salinity. Revealing the complete genome of this tree holds great importance. To achieve this, a local cultivar of Russian olive was sampled from the northwest region of Iran for whole genome sequencing using the Illumina platform resulting in approximately 6GB of raw data. A quality check of the raw data indicated that approximately 45,011,388 read pairs were obtained from sequences totalling around 6.7×109bp with CG content of 31%. To assemble the genome of the Russian olive tree, the raw data was aligned to a reference sequence of the jujube (Ziziphus jujuba) genome, which is the taxonomically closest plant to the Russian olive. Assembly of alignments yielded a genome size of 553,696,299bp consisting of 339,701 contigs. The N50 value was 5,300 with an L50 value of 24,921 and GC content of the Russian olive genome was 31.5%. This research represents the first report on the genome of the Iranian cultivar of the Russian olive tree.