Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
J Hered. 2021 Nov 1;112(6):558-564. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esab032.
Hymenopterans make up about 20% of all animal species, but most are poorly known and lack high-quality genomic resources. One group of important, yet understudied hymenopterans are parasitoid wasps in the family Braconidae. Among this understudied group is the genus Cotesia, a clade of ~1,000 species routinely used in studies of physiology, ecology, biological control, and genetics. However, our ability to understand these organisms has been hindered by a lack of genomic resources. We helped bridge this gap by generating a high-quality genome assembly for the parasitoid wasp, Cotesia glomerata (Braconidae; Microgastrinae). We generated this assembly using multiple sequencing technologies, including Oxford Nanopore, whole-genome shotgun sequencing, and 3D chromatin contact information (HiC). Our assembly is one of the most contiguous, complete, and publicly available hymenopteran genomes, represented by 3,355 scaffolds with a scaffold N50 of ~28 Mb and a BUSCO score of ~99%. Given the genome sizes found in closely related species, our genome assembly was ~50% larger than expected, which was apparently induced by runaway amplification of 3 types of repetitive elements: simple repeats, long terminal repeats, and long interspersed nuclear elements. This assembly is another step forward for genomics across this hyperdiverse, yet understudied order of insects. The assembled genomic data and metadata files are publicly available via Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13010549).
膜翅目约占所有动物物种的 20%，但大多数都知之甚少，缺乏高质量的基因组资源。膜翅目昆虫中的一个重要但研究不足的群体是Braconidae 科的寄生蜂。在这个研究不足的群体中，有一个属是 Cotesia，这是一个约有 1000 种物种的进化枝，通常用于研究生理学、生态学、生物防治和遗传学。然而，由于缺乏基因组资源，我们理解这些生物的能力受到了阻碍。我们通过生成寄生蜂 Cotesia glomerata（Braconidae；Microgastrinae）的高质量基因组组装来弥补这一差距。我们使用多种测序技术生成了这个组装，包括牛津纳米孔测序、全基因组鸟枪法测序和 3D 染色质接触信息（HiC）。我们的组装是最连续、完整和公开可用的膜翅目基因组之一，由 3355 个支架组成，支架 N50 约为 28Mb，BUSCO 分数约为 99%。考虑到在亲缘关系密切的物种中发现的基因组大小，我们的基因组组装比预期的大了约 50%，这显然是由 3 种重复元件（简单重复序列、长末端重复序列和长散布核元件）的失控扩增引起的。这个组装是该超多样化但研究不足的昆虫目在基因组学方面的又一进步。组装的基因组数据和元数据文件可通过 Figshare（https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13010549）获取。
