AUTHOR=Wang Zi-Long , Zhu Yong-Qiang , Yan Qing , Yan Wei-Yu , Zheng Hua-Jun , Zeng Zhi-Jiang 

TITLE=A Chromosome-Scale Assembly of the Asian Honeybee Apis cerana Genome

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2020.00279

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2020.00279

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p><italic>Apis cerana</italic> is one of the main honeybee species in artificial farming, which is widely distributed in Asian countries. The genome of <italic>A. cerana</italic> has been sequenced by several different research groups using second generation sequencing technologies. However, it is still necessary to obtain more complete and accurate genome sequences. Here we present a chromosome-scale assembly of the <italic>A. cerana</italic> genome using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) Pacific Biosciences sequencing and high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) genome scaffolding. The updated assembly is 215.67 Mb in size with a contig N50 of 4.49 Mb, representing an 212-fold improvement over the previous Illumina-based version. Hi-C scaffolding resulted in 16 pseudochromosomes occupying 97.85% of the assembled genome sequences. A total of 10,741 protein-coding genes were predicted and 9,627 genes were annotated. Besides, 314 new genes were identified compared to the previous version. The improved high-quality <italic>A. cerana</italic> reference genome will provide precise sequence information for biological research of <italic>A. cerana</italic>.</p>