The Genomic Sequencing of Diploid Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum)

The ongoing blueberry (Vaccinium ssp. section Cyanococcus) genomic sequencing project has continued to generate high quality data, allowing us to refine our assembly and analysis techniques.  DNA from a diploid V. corymbosum (‘W8520’) with a genome size of approximately 500 mb was used to construct libraries for both 454 and Illumina GAIIx.  Long read structural scaffolds using paired end 454 libraries of different insert sizes (3kb, 8kb and 20kb) are generated and gaps are filled with a high density of Illumina reads (36, 76, and 100bp). To date, we have generated 8,106,330 sequences (or 2.7 billion bp’s) of raw data on the Roche 454 and 44.4 billion bp’s on the GA2x. This vast influx of data creates unique challenges for successfully manipulating, analyzing, and simulating assemblies. The Release of the genomic sequence is planned for late 2011 and the Genome Database for Vaccinium (GDV)  (http://www.vaccinium.org) has been established to house the blueberry sequence and to incorporate genetic and breeding resources for blueberry, cranberry and other Vaccinium sp. Work is currently under way to integrate the genomic sequence to existing blueberry genetic linkage maps utilizing SSR markers identified from the largest 10% of the sequencing scaffolds. To date over 90% of existing ESTs have been identified and initial ab inito annotations have identified numerous homologous gene sequences to pathways of interest. The Flavonoid pathway is provided as an example.