Genome and transcriptome sequencing and assembly of three diplonemids. Diplonema and Rhynchopus spp.

Diplonemids are complex heterotrophic marine unicellular eukaryotes with two flagella, evolutionarily related to euglenids (e.g, Euglena) and kinetoplastids (e.g., Trypanosoma). The initial project samples three species available in culture collections (Diplonema ambulator, Diplonema sp. 2, Rhynchopus euleeides), which encompass the diversity of one of the four major diplonemid clades according to nuclear-gene phylogenies. The sequencing effort focuses in particular on diplonemid fragmented mitochondrial genomes, which encode exclusively fragmented genes, and on their mitochondrial transcriptomes, which demonstrate how the fragmented coding sequences are stitched together post-transcriptionally.