Comparative genomics of parasitic flatworms. Comparative genomics of parasitic flatworms

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are infected with one or more species of parasitic flatworm. These can cause chronic, debilitating infections resulting in substantial social and economic burdens. While efforts to understand and control these infections are ongoing, there is still a lack of high-quality, annotated reference genomes for many of these species. As a result, key questions about the biology and epidemiology of these species go unanswered In an effort to increase the quality and range of genomic resources available we have used a combination of low-DNA input PacBio sequencing and long-range scaffolding approaches (Chromium Linked-Reads and Arima Hi-C) to generate de novo genome assemblies using unamplified DNA from single trematode isolates. Using this approach, we have generated chromosomal-scale reference-quality genome assemblies for multiple trematode species, primarily from Schistosoma. We combined these assemblies with full-length cDNA (PacBio Iso-Seq) sequencing to produce high-quality gene annotations.