Report on the sequencing of the sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.) ‘Schattenmorelle’ genome

Precise whole genome sequencing and accurate annotation provides a wealth of information on crops, for example the location of genes for important traits, or the structure of the genome itself. More than one whole genome sequence for fruit trees such as peach, apple, pear and sweet cherry are available to accelerate the breeding process, select desirable traits, and breed new cultivars. to date, there is no published genome of sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L., 2n=4x=32). It is assumed that sour cherry consists of complex segmental allotetraploid genome that developed from an ancient hybridization event between unreduced pollen of diploid P. avium L. (2n=2x=16) and the gametes of tetraploid P. fruticosa (2n=4x=32). Structural changes within the genome sequence that evolved during the evolution of this species, especially within its subgenomes, could result in the occurrence of auto- and allopolyploid genomic segments. In this study, we report whole genome and transcriptome sequencing of sour cherry cultivar Schattenmorelle with subsequent assembly to a pseudo-chromosome-level representing a model sequence with gene annotation (Wöhner et al., 2023). Our study furthermore investigated the occurrence of structural differences compared to ancestor-representing genome sequences obtained from P. avium ‘Tieton’ and P. fruticosa ecotype Hármashatárhegy.