Table_2_A Chromosome-Scale Assembly of the Asian Honeybee Apis cerana Genome.DOCX

Apis cerana is one of the main honeybee species in artificial farming, which is widely distributed in Asian countries. The genome of A. cerana has been sequenced by several different research groups using second generation sequencing technologies. However, it is still necessary to obtain more complete and accurate genome sequences. Here we present a chromosome-scale assembly of the A. cerana genome using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) Pacific Biosciences sequencing and high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) genome scaffolding. The updated assembly is 215.67 Mb in size with a contig N50 of 4.49 Mb, representing an 212-fold improvement over the previous Illumina-based version. Hi-C scaffolding resulted in 16 pseudochromosomes occupying 97.85% of the assembled genome sequences. A total of 10,741 protein-coding genes were predicted and 9,627 genes were annotated. Besides, 314 new genes were identified compared to the previous version. The improved high-quality A. cerana reference genome will provide precise sequence information for biological research of A. cerana.

东方蜜蜂（Apis cerana）是人工养殖的主要蜂类物种之一，广泛分布于亚洲各国。此前已有多个研究团队利用第二代测序技术对东方蜜蜂的基因组完成了测序，但目前仍需获取更为完整且精准的基因组序列。本研究采用单分子实时（single-molecule real-time, SMRT）太平洋生物科学（Pacific Biosciences）测序技术，结合高通量染色质构象捕获（Hi-C）基因组支架组装技术，构建了东方蜜蜂的染色体级基因组组装结果。本次更新的组装序列总长为215.67 Mb，重叠群（contig）N50值达4.49 Mb，较此前基于Illumina测序的组装版本提升了212倍。通过Hi-C支架组装，共获得16条假染色体，其序列总长占组装基因组序列的97.85%。本研究共预测得到10741个蛋白编码基因，其中9627个基因完成了功能注释。此外，相较于此前的组装版本，本研究还新鉴定出314个基因。这份经过优化的高质量东方蜜蜂参考基因组，将为东方蜜蜂的相关生物学研究提供精准的序列信息。