Assessing Genetic Diversity of Asian Salamanders (Hynobiidae) lived in Far East Asia using Transcriptome data

Asian salamander Hynobiidae is commonly observed in the Far East Asia regions, including Korea, Japan, China, and the eastern region of Russia. In Korea, there are four Hynobiidae species known to be lived: Hynobius leechii, Hynobius quelpaertensis, Hynobius yangi, and recently reported Hynobius unisacculus. However, even H. leechii which is broadly colonized in Korea peninsula seems to have a new species candidate, which has distinctive genetic and phenotypic characteristics. Genomic resources are essential to understand the current status of these species, but due to the large size of their genomes (about 16 to 20 Gb), it is not easy to analyze. To reveal the genomic characteristics of these species, we constructed more than ten thousands of protein-coding gene sequences from multiple samples of each species, using the de novo transcriptome assembly approach from RNA-Seq data, confirming their taxonomic relationship which was reported based on mitochondrial DNA and marker genes. Also, by comparing previously reported transcriptome of Hynobius chinensis and Hynobius retardatus, lived in China and Japan, respectively, we found that Korean species have unique genetic signatures. By comparing vertebrate model organism genes, we reported Hynobidaii specific proteins. These data would be a useful resource to study other Caudata species in the future. This research was supported by the National Institute of Biological Resources, Republic of Korea, under the project "Genetic diversity of animal resources” (NIBR201703203 and NIBR201803101). We collect adult salamanders lived in Korea