The tea plant reference genome and improved gene annotation using long-read and paired-end sequencing data

Tea is a globally consumed non-alcohol beverage with great economic importance. Lacking of the reference genome has largely hampered the utilization of the precious tea plant genetic resources towards breeding. To address this, we generated a high-quality reference genome of tea plant using Illumina and PacBio sequencing technology that totally produced 2,124 Gb (~700-fold coverage) short and 125 Gb (~41-fold) long read data, respectively. We employed a hybrid strategy to assemble the genome that has been publicly released. We here described the data framework used to generate, annotate and validate the genome assembly. Besides, we re-predicted the protein-coding genes and annotated their putative functions using more complete omics datasets and improved training models. We reassessed the assembly and annotation quality using the latest version of BUSCO. These data can be used to develop new methodologies/tools for better assembly of complex genomes, aid in finding of novel genes, variations and evolutionary clues associated with tea quality, and thus help to breed new varieties with high yields and quality in the future.