Draft genome assembly of gill endosymbiont from Bathymodiolus thermophilus. Bathymodiolus thermophilus thioautotrophic gill symbiont strain:BAT/CrabSpa'14

Bathymodiolus thermophilus is a deep-sea mussel inhabiting the hydrothermal vents of East-Pacific Rise. The mussel harbors a gammaproteobacterial symbiont within specialised cells in its gills. These endosymbionts provide carbon and energy to their mussel host by oxidizing the reduced sulfur-compound laden vent fluids. We sequenced the genome of the endosymbiont for the first time in order to gain better insights into its metabolic potential. Symbiont DNA was isolated from enriched fractions of the symbiont isolated from gills was sequenced using the Illumina paired-end method. Assembly of raw-reads into contigs and scaffolds yielded a partial genome assembly upto 96% complete.

嗜热偏顶蛤（Bathymodiolus thermophilus）是栖息于东太平洋海隆热液喷口的深海贻贝。该贻贝的鳃部特化细胞内寄宿有一种γ-变形菌门（Gammaproteobacteria）共生菌。这类内共生菌通过氧化富含还原态硫化合物的喷口流体，为宿主贻贝提供碳源与能量。为深入解析其代谢潜能，研究团队首次对该内共生菌的基因组进行了测序。研究人员从鳃部分离得到的共生菌富集组分中提取共生菌DNA，采用Illumina双端测序法完成测序。通过对原始测序读段进行组装得到重叠群与支架序列，最终获得了完整性达96%的部分基因组组装结果。