As peach trees go, it doesn't look much different than its kin（亲戚，家族） at the Clemson University Musser Fruit Research Farm, but appearances can be deceiving（欺骗） . This one, a Lovell variety, has a unique genetic characteristic that made it a standout（杰出的，突出的） in the orchard（果园） . Its DNA — its genetic set of instructions for living — has been sequenced by scientists, enabling further research to identify beneficial traits（特性，特质） to grow better trees and fruit. The tree's DNA sequence is being published worldwide April 1, opening a new era in fruit-tree research that could have far-reaching implications（含意，启示） for the future of peaches, as well as many other valuable plants. The research is available online at http://www.peachgenome.org.

This genome sequence is the culmination（顶点，高潮） of an extensive research program pioneered at Clemson University under the leadership of Albert "Bert" Abbott, who holds the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair in Molecular Genetics and is a professor in the genetics and biochemistry department. The research goal is to establish the peach as a model tree genome for identifying and understanding genes that are critical for deciduous tree（阔叶树，落叶树） growth and development.

"The tree providing the DNA for the sequencing effort was chosen after careful analysis of DNA from specific trees in the Musser orchard," said Abbott. "The choice of this tree was crucial to the overall success of the project, and the extremely high quality of the peach genome sequence assembly is a direct result of this choice."

The peach genomics（基因组学） efforts of the Clemson research team and its international collaborators（合作者） led the Joint Genome Institute, a federally funded sequencing facility, to underwrite（承保，包销） the sequencing the genome of peach as one of the key plant species of interest worldwide.

Clemson and Washington State University maintain the Genome Database for Rosaceae, which is a central repository（中央资料库，中央存储器） of genetics and genomics data of Rosaceae, an economically important plant family, including apple, cherry, peach, pear, raspberry（覆盆子） , rose and strawberry.

Clemson has a close connection to Washington State through Dorrie Main, a WSU associate professor of bioinformatics. She previously was director of bioinformatics（生物信息学） at the Clemson University Genomics Institute, a research and training facility focusing on the discovery and analysis of important genes from plants, animals and microbes（细菌，微生物） .

Bryon Sosinski, a graduate of the Clemson genetics program, now an associate professor of horticultural（园艺的） science at N.C. State University, served as the American coordinator of an effort to sequence the genome of the peach. Sosinski said the effort spanned the globe, involving scientists in Italy, Spain and Chile. In the United States, N.C. State, the Joint Genome Institute, Clemson and Washington State universities were the principal partners. In the United States, the effort was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, while the Italian government funded the international effort.

The peach genome should be useful to scientists working with a number of peach relatives whose genomes appear to be similar to that of the peach, according to Sosinski.

"Some of these relatives, such as apple or plum, might be expected, but others, such as strawberries and raspberries（树莓，山竹果） , and trees, such as poplar and chestnut（栗子） , would seem unlikely in that the plants are quite different from peaches," he said.