Abstract
SummaryPomegranate (Punica granatum L.) has an ancient cultivation history and has become an emerging profitable fruit crop due to its attractive features such as the bright red appearance and the high abundance of medicinally valuable ellagitannin‐based compounds in its peel and aril. However, the limited genomic resources have restricted further elucidation of genetics and evolution of these interesting traits. Here, we report a 274‐Mb high‐quality draft pomegranate genome sequence, which covers approximately 81.5% of the estimated 336‐Mb genome, consists of 2177 scaffolds with an N50 size of 1.7 Mb and contains 30 903 genes. Phylogenomic analysis supported that pomegranate belongs to the Lythraceae family rather than the monogeneric Punicaceae family, and comparative analyses showed that pomegranate and Eucalyptus grandis share the paleotetraploidy event. Integrated genomic and transcriptomic analyses provided insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis of ellagitannin‐based compounds, the colour formation in both peels and arils during pomegranate fruit development, and the unique ovule development processes that are characteristic of pomegranate. This genome sequence provides an important resource to expand our understanding of some unique biological processes and to facilitate both comparative biology studies and crop breeding.
Highlights
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), native to central Asia, is an ancient medicinal fruit crop grown worldwide (Holland et al, 2009) that has considerable economic value
Pomegranate is referred to as a ‘super fruit’ (Teixeira da Silva et al, 2013) and the planted acreages and fruit production of pomegranate have increased substantially over the past decade (Yi et al, 2016). Apart from it commercial importance, pomegranate has become an attractive system for studying several valuable biological features, such as high antioxidant activity in the fruit, colour formation in the fruit peel and aril, and poly-caryopsis as a valuable trait for crop production and ovule developmental biology (Supporting Information)
Genetic and physiological studies show that the UDP-glucose: gallate glucosyltransferase (UGT) gene plays a key role in the ellagitannin biosynthesis, catalysing gallic acid to b-glucogallin in pomegranate (Ono et al, 2016)
Summary
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), native to central Asia, is an ancient medicinal fruit crop grown worldwide (Holland et al, 2009) that has considerable economic value. Pomegranate is referred to as a ‘super fruit’ (Teixeira da Silva et al, 2013) and the planted acreages and fruit production of pomegranate have increased substantially over the past decade (Yi et al, 2016). Apart from it commercial importance, pomegranate has become an attractive system for studying several valuable biological features, such as high antioxidant activity in the fruit, colour formation in the fruit peel and aril (the edible part of the pomegranate fruit), and poly-caryopsis as a valuable trait for crop production and ovule developmental biology (Supporting Information).
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