Genome assembly and annotation of Arabidopsis halleri, an emerging model for heavy metal hyperaccumulation and evolutionary ecology

Arabidopsis halleri is a close relative of the best studied model plant A. thaliana. It has been a model species to study plant physiology, ecology and evolution including heavy metal hyperaccumulation, gene expression in natural environments, self-incompatibility, defence against insects by heavy metal and trichome, polyploid speciation, local and altitudinal adaptations. We sequenced an individual with high homozygosity achieved by repeated forced selfing of a wild individual of subspecies gemmifera from Tada mine, Japan. Obtained mate-pair libraries along with previously published pair-end libraries were used to assemble and annotate the genome sequence.