Genome Assembly and Microsatellite Marker Development Using Illumina and PacBio Sequencing in the <i>Carex pumila</i> (Cyperaceae) from Korea

Abstract

This study is the first to report the characterization of Carex pumila genomic information. Assembly of the genome generated a draft of C. pumila based on PacBio Sequel II and Illumina paired-end sequencing, which was assembled from 2941 contigs with an estimated genome size of 0.346 Gb. The estimate of repeats in the genome was 31.0%, and heterozygosity ranged from 0.426 to 0.441%. The integrity evaluation of the assembly revealed 1481 complete benchmarked universal single-copy orthologs (BUSCO) (91.76%), indicating the high quality of the draft assembly. A total of 23,402 protein-coding genes were successfully predicted and annotated in the protein database. UpsetR plots showed that 7481 orthogroups were shared by all species. The phylogenetic tree showed that C. pumila is a close but distant relative of Ananas comosus. C. pumila had greater contraction (3154) than expansion (392). Among the extended gene families, aquaporins have been found to be enriched. Primers for microsatellite markers determined 30 polymorphic markers out of 100. The average number of alleles amplified by these 30 polymorphic markers was 4 to 12, with an average polymorphism information content (PIC) value of 0.660. In conclusion, our study provides a useful resource for comparative genomics, phylogeny, and future population studies of C. pumila.

Keywords

• genomics
• genome assembly
• medicinal plants
• next-generation sequencing
• halophyte plants