Macrobrachium rosenbergii genome assembly and gene annotation

The giant river prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii), belonging to the order Decapoda, is one of the most widely cultured crustacean species. In recent years, the aquaculture of M. rosenbergii has faced challenges, including the degradation of germplasm resources and the emergence of viral diseases. The genomic information can serve as a valuable resource for developing molecular breeding programs for this important aquaculture species. Here we constructed a high-quality reference genome for M. rosenbergii by integrating Nanopore, Illumina, and high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) technologies. The final genome assembly is 3.18 Gb in size, with scaffold N50 and contig N50 of 62.73 Mb and 8.92 Mb, respectively. Approximately 98.6% of the assembled sequences were anchored into 59 pseudo-chromosomes. Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) benchmark of the genome assembly reached 94.5%. Repetitive sequences comprise 43.77% of the assembled genome, and 17,436 protein-coding genes were annotated. The high-quality genome of M. rosenbergii will empower molecular breeding efforts and provide invaluable resources for comparative genomic analysis of decapod species.