The Genome of Pear

Abstract

As the third most important temperate tree fruit species, the pear occupies an indispensable position of high commercial importance and of beneficial nutritional value. Since the release of genome sequences of the Asian pear and then of the European pear, comprehensive ‘big data’ explorations have been extensively carried out at the whole-genome level, including those of gene families, functional genomics, and evolution analysis, among others. With the innovation of technology and reduced costs of sequencing, increasing numbers of genome resequencing and transcriptome sequencing projects have also been undertaken based on the reference genome sequence of pear. These efforts will provide credible data to support further functional analyses and valuable guidance in pursuing germplasm improvement and breeding of pear. Herein, research advances in pear genome sequencing and its downstream analyses are summarized and discussed, along with future perspectives.