De novo assembly of 3 novel White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) genomes isolated from shrimp during disease outbreaks in India

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is an extremely virulent viral pathogen infecting farmed shrimp causing significant economic losses worldwide and has emerged as one of the most prevalent and widespread viruses of crustaceans. In this study, gut tissues isolated from Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) that were collected during disease outbreaks in 2016 and 2019 (West coast of India, Maharashtra) and 2018 (East coast of India, Tamil Nadu) were subjected to Illumina metagenome sequencing. De novo metagenome assembly identified 3 novel WSSV strains, with genome lengths of 281,060 bp (WSSV-IN-CWG3), 281,813 bp (WSSV-IN-DBA1182) and 285,601bp (WSSV-IN-PG1).