Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy.
J Hered. 2023 May 25;114(3):279-285. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esad014.
The Aeolian wall lizard, Podarcis raffonei, is an endangered species endemic to the Aeolian archipelago, Italy, where it is present only in 3 tiny islets and a narrow promontory of a larger island. Because of the extremely limited area of occupancy, severe population fragmentation and observed decline, it has been classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Using Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) High Fidelity (HiFi) long-read sequencing, Bionano optical mapping and Arima chromatin conformation capture sequencing (Hi-C), we produced a high-quality, chromosome-scale reference genome for the Aeolian wall lizard, including Z and W sexual chromosomes. The final assembly spans 1.51 Gb across 28 scaffolds with a contig N50 of 61.4 Mb, a scaffold N50 of 93.6 Mb, and a BUSCO completeness score of 97.3%. This genome constitutes a valuable resource for the species to guide potential conservation efforts and more generally for the squamate reptiles that are underrepresented in terms of available high-quality genomic resources.
风神龙蜴，Podarcis raffonei，是一种濒危物种，仅分布于意大利的埃奥利群岛，且仅存在于 3 个小岛和一个较大岛屿的狭长海角上。由于栖息地面积极其有限、种群严重碎片化和观察到的数量减少，它已被国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）列为极危物种。我们使用太平洋生物科学公司（PacBio）的高保真（HiFi）长读测序、Bionano 光学图谱和 Arima 染色质构象捕获测序（Hi-C），为风神龙蜴生成了一个高质量的染色体级参考基因组，包括 Z 和 W 性染色体。最终组装跨越 28 个支架，大小为 15.1Gb，有 6140 万个碱基对（Mb）的 contig N50，9360 万个碱基对（Mb）的 scaffold N50，和 97.3%的完整后生动物基因数据集（BUSCO）。该基因组为该物种的潜在保护工作提供了有价值的资源，并且更广泛地为在可用高质量基因组资源方面代表性不足的有鳞目爬行动物提供了资源。
