Scientists Produce Genome Sequence of the Woodland Strawberry

An international team of researchers, including scientists from the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), announced that they have sequenced the genome of Fragaria vesca, commonly known as woodland strawberry. A relative of peach, cherry and cultivated strawberry F. vesca has many traits that make it an attractive model system for functional genomics studies. Like Arabidopsis, the lab rat of the plant world, F. vesca's small size and rapid life cycle enable researchers to conduct genetic analyses with great efficiency and low cost. It also has a relatively small genome that can easily be manipulated to allow identification of gene functions.

Despite its small genome size, F. vesca shares most gene sequences with other members of the Rosaceae family, allowing researchers to identify genes in economically important members of the family. The Rosaceae family is composed of more than 100 genera and 3,000 species including almond, rose, raspberry and apple. Janet Slovin, researcher at the ARS, will use the genome to study and improve heat tolerance during fruit production in strawberry.

Read the original story at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/100111.htm