Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Genome Biol Evol. 2021 Feb 3;13(2). doi: 10.1093/gbe/evaa265.
Cold-water corals (CWCs) are important habitats for creatures in the deep-sea environment, but they have been degraded by anthropogenic activity. So far, no genome for any CWC has been reported. Here, we report a draft genome of Trachythela sp., which represents the first genome of CWCs to date. In total, 56 and 65 Gb of raw reads were generated from Illumina and Nanopore sequencing platforms, respectively. The final assembled genome was 578.26 Mb, which consisted of 396 contigs with a contig N50 of 3.56 Mb, and the genome captured 90.1% of the metazoan Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs. We identified 335 Mb (57.88% of the genome) of repetitive elements, which is a higher proportion compared with others in the Cnidarians, along with 35,305 protein-coding genes. We also detected 483 expanded and 51 contracted gene families, and many of them were associated with longevity, ion transposase, heme-binding nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, and metabolic regulators of transcription. Overall, we believe this genome will serve as an important resource for studies on community protection for CWCs.
冷水珊瑚（CWCs）是深海环境中生物的重要栖息地，但它们已经受到人为活动的破坏。到目前为止，还没有任何 CWC 的基因组被报道。在这里，我们报告了 Trachythela sp. 的基因组草图，这是迄今为止第一个 CWC 的基因组。总共从 Illumina 和 Nanopore 测序平台生成了 56 和 65Gb 的原始读数。最终组装的基因组大小为 578.26Mb，由 396 个 contigs 组成，contig N50 为 3.56Mb，该基因组捕获了后生动物基准通用单拷贝直系同源物的 90.1%。我们鉴定了 335Mb（基因组的 57.88%）的重复元件，与刺胞动物中的其他物种相比，这一比例更高，同时还鉴定了 35305 个蛋白质编码基因。我们还检测到 483 个扩展和 51 个收缩基因家族，其中许多与长寿、离子转座酶、血红素结合烟酰胺腺嘌呤二核苷酸和转录代谢调节剂有关。总的来说，我们相信这个基因组将成为研究冷水珊瑚群落保护的重要资源。
