The genus Potentilla (Rosaceae) is large and diverse and is closely-related to the economically important Rubus and Fragaria. Potentilla species exhibit many morphological similarities to Fragaria, but the majority do not form fleshy accessory ‘berries’ characteristic of all members of the Fragaria. The close relatedness, morphological similarities, small genome size and high homozygosity of a number of Potentilla species make them an ideal comparative organism to study characteristic features of Fragaria such as ‘berry’ formation. To develop an experimental system to study such traits, the genome of P. micrantha was sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq and MiSeq and the PacBio RS sequencing platforms. Data were generated from overlapping paired end libraries, large insert mate-pair libraries PacBio SMRT-bell libraries. The sequence data was assembled and a genome with an approximate size of 315 Mb was recovered, and confirmed with flow-cytometry against a F. vesca ‘Hawaii 4’ standard. RNA-seq was performed on reproductive tissue samples from five stages of fruit development in P. micrantha, corresponding to the stages of development defined for F. vesca. Additionally RNA-seq was performed on young leaf samples. Comparisons of the P. micrantha genome and transcriptome sequence to that of F. vesca ‘Hawaii 4’ revealed a high degree of expected synteny, but also clear patterns of global and localized divergence. The details and implications of these differences with respect to fruit development will be discussed.
