Transcriptome comparison between two fig (Ficus carica L.) cultivars

The fig tree, Ficus carica L., is one of the first domesticated plants, grown since the beginning of agriculture for fresh consumption of its fruits. Recently, the predicted transcriptome of the Japanese cultivar Horaishi was published, based on its genome sequence. After producing a preliminary genome sequence draft of another genotype, the Italian cv. Dottato, we identified and annotated 41,857 putative genes. A comparison was made between the predicted transcriptomes of the two cultivars and putatively Dottato specific genes were identified. Of these, 534 genes were not found in the Horaishi genome and might represent sequences unique to cv. Dottato. Only 2,374 pairs of reliable orthologous genes could be selected in the two genotypes indicating the occurrence of large sequence variability. Overall, our data provide a resource for fig functional genomics studies, and represent one of the first reports on the intraspecific genome diversity existing in this species.