Genome assemblies and gene models of of the zoantharians Palythoa mizigama and Palythoa umbrosa

Anthozoan hexacorals are an important animal group in many marine environments and include at least ~3,500 extant species. Zoantharia is an order among the Hexacorallia (Anthozoa: Cnidaria) and is a sister group to a clade consisting of four orders: Actiniaria, Antipatharia, Corallimorpharia, and Scleractinia. Previously reported genomes from scleractinian corals and actiniarian sea anemones have illuminated part of the hexacorallian diversification. However, little is known about zoantharian genomes and the early evolution of hexacorals. We generated two Palythoa genomes from the order Zoantharia within Hexacorallia, providing novel insights into early hexacorallian evolution by comparing with genomes of diversified scleractinian corals and actiniarian sea anemones.
Draft genomes generated from ultra-low input PacBio sequencing totaled 373 Mbp and 319 Mbp for Palythoa mizigama (Pmiz) and Palythoa umbrosa (Pumb), respectively. 30,394 and 24,800 protein-coding genes were predicted in gen..., Sample collection
The two target species of the genus Palythoa (P. mizigama and P. umbrosa) were collected from different sites in southern Japan. P. mizigama was sampled at Mizugama, Okinawa Island, Okinawa, Japan on October 9, 2023. The sampling location of P. umbrosa was at Nakano, Iriomote Island, Okinawa, Japan on September 16, 2023. Each Palythoa polyp was added into 50 mL tubes and they were chopped into small pieces with scissors. Fragmented tissues were put into 3.3x PBS and were kept for 30 min. By 5 min vortexing during this period, we dissociated the tissue into individual cells. Dissociated cells were centrifuged at 1,000 g for 5 min. After discarding the supernatant, they were quickly frozen in liquid nitrogen and were kept in a -80 °C freezer until processing.
DNA isolation and sequencing
High molecular weight DNAs from dissociated cells were extracted using innuPREP Plant DNA Kit I (Analytik Jena AG, Germany) following the manufacturer’s protocol. Sequencing libraries fr..., , # Genome assemblies and gene models of of the zoantharians Palythoa mizigama and Palythoa umbrosa

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j0zpc86p9](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j0zpc86p9)

We have submitted the genome assemblies and gene models of two *palythoa* (*P. mizigama and P. umbrosa)* as the following 8 files.

Genome assembly of the zoantharian *Palythoa mizigama* in FASTA format
File name: **Pmiz_final.hm11.contigs.20240419.fa.gz**

Gene models of the zoantharian *Palythoa mizigama* in General Transfer Format (GTF)
File name: **Pmiz_final.hm11.20240419.gtf.gz**

mRNA sequences of protein-coding genes of the zoantharian *Palythoa mizigama* in FASTA format
File name: **Pmiz_final.hm11.transcript.20240419.fa.gz**

Amino acid sequences of protein-coding genes of the zoantharian *Palythoa mizigama* in FASTA format
File name: **Pmiz_final.protein.20240419.fa.gz**

Genome assembly of the zoantharian *Palythoa umbrosa* in FASTA format
File name: **Pumb_final.hm11.contigs.20240419.fa.gz**

G...