<b>Chromosome-scale genome assembly of </b><b><i>Codonopsis pilosula</i></b><b> and comparative genomic analyses shed light on its genome evolution</b>

<i>Codonopsis pilosula</i>, renowned for its edibility and medicinal properties, is a significant plant in traditional Chinese medicine. However, the lack of available genomic resources has hindered further research. This study presents the first chromosome-scale genome assembly of <i>C. pilosula</i> using PacBio CLR reads and Hi-C scaffolding technology. The assembly resulted in a high-quality genome of 679.20 Mb. The genome was anchored to 8 pseudo-chromosomes, with an anchoring rate of 96.5% and a scaffold N50 of 80.50 Mb. The completeness of assembly was determined to be 97.6% by using Benchmarking with Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO). Notably, repetitive elements constituted ~76.8% of the genome, with long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTR-RTs) dominating this group of elements (~29.85% of the genome).