Assembly and annotation of Fragaria vesca 'Yellow Wonder' genome, a model diploid strawberry for molecular genetic research

Abstract

Fragaria vesca, a wild diploid strawberry, serves as a fundamental research model for cultivated strawberry. The current reference genomes available are limited to two closely-related accessions, Hawaii 4 and CFRA2339. The widely-used model accession 'Yellow Wonder' does not yet have its reference genome. In this study, the genome of a 7th generation inbred 'Yellow Wonder' was assembled using a combination of Oxford Nanopore long reads and Illumina short reads. The de novo chromosome-scale assembly of this 220 megabase genome possesses 34,007 genes which were annotated through lift over from the Hawaii 4 genome annotation. Genome comparisons show that the 'Yellow Wonder' genome is relatively distinct from the two previously published F. vesca accessions, Hawaii 4 and CFRA2339. The availability of a 'Yellow Wonder' reference genome adds another important genomic resource to Fragaria vesca and enables rapid research progress in strawberry.