Assembly of the Asian seabass genome using PacBio long-read data and multi-layered scaffolding. Asian seabass genome project

The Asian seabass genome has an estimated size of ~700Mb. We sequenced the genome on the Pacific Biosciences sequencing platform, and the primary assembly was performed using HGAP. The genome assembly was then further scaffolded through a multi-layered approach using transcriptome data, optical and genetic maps as well as synteny with other fish genomes to obtain a chromosomal-level assembly. The scaffolded genome was then polished in three cycles using PILON with two Illumina paired-end libraries (insert sizes 500bp and 750bp). Potentially misassembled regions were identified using REAPR, and these regions were replaced with Ns (to indicate the region as a gap or unresolved).