Supporting data for the chromosome-level genome assembly of the malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis

<i>Anopheles arabiensis</i> belongs to the <i>An. gambiae</i> complex and is among the major malaria vectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, a chromosome-level reference genome assembly for this medically important species is not yet available. <br>In this study, we produced <i>de novo</i> chromosome-level genome assemblies for both <i>An. coluzzii</i> and <i>An. arabiensis</i> using the long-read Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology and the Hi-C scaffolding approach. <br>We obtained a 256.8 Mbp assembly for <i>An. arabiensis</i>, consisting of three chromosome-scale scaffolds (X, 2, 3), complete mitochondrion, and unordered contigs identified as autosomal pericentromeric DNA, X pericentromeric DNA, and Y sequences. A comparison of our assembly with the existing assemblies for these species demonstrated that we obtained improved reference-quality genomes. Together, the new assemblies of <i>An. coluzzii</i> and <i>An. arabiensis</i> allowed us to identify genomic coordinates for the breakpoint regions of fixed and polymorphic chromosomal inversions. <br>This new chromosome-level assembly will facilitate functional and population genomic studies and the presented assembly pipeline will accelerate progress toward creating high-quality genome references for other disease vectors.