Chromosome-level genome assembly of the Stoliczka's Asian trident bat (Aselliscus stoliczkanus)

Abstract

Stoliczka's Asian trident bat (Aselliscus stoliczkanus) is a small-bodied species and very sensitive to climate change. Here, we presented a chromosome-level genome assembly of A. stoliczkanus by combining Illumina sequencing, Nanopore sequencing and high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) sequencing technology. The genome assembly was 2.18 Gb in size with 98.26% of the genome sequences anchored onto 14 autosomes and two sex chromosomes (X and Y). The quality of the genome assembly is very high with a contig and scaffold N50 of 72.98 and 162 Mb, respectively, Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) score of 96.6%, and the consensus quality value (QV) of 47.44. A total of 20,567 genes were predicted and 98.8% of these genes were functionally annotated. Syntenic blocks between A. stoliczkanus and Homo sapiens, together with previous comparative cytogenetic studies, provide valuable foundations for further comparative genomic and cytogenetic studies in mammals. The reference-quality genome of A. stoliczkanus contributes an important resource for conservative genomics and landscape genomics in predicting adaptation and vulnerability to climate change.

Fig. 1

(a) Genomescope profile for 21-mers based on Illumina short-reads. (b) Hi-C contact map for the genome assembly.

Fig. 2

Circos showing the genomic structure of A. stolizkanus including chromosome, gene density, repeat density, and GC content (%) from the outer circle to inner one.

Fig. 3

The contiguity of the genome assembly revealed by Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) score and N50 of contig and scaffold. Genome assembly of Aselliscus stoliczkanus was shown in red.

Fig. 4

(a) G-banded karyotype of A. stolizkanus with syntenic blocks between A. stolizkanus (Asto) and two other species (Myotis myotis: MMY; Homo sapiens: HSA₎ identified in previous comparative cytogenetic studies_. The capital letter “H” in chromosome 14 represents heterochromatin. The diagram for each chromosome is also shown on the left and the black color in the diagram represents the regions in which the GC content of a 1-Mb window is lower than the average GC content of the chromosome. (b) Genomic synteny and collinearity among Asto, MMY and HSA. Chromosomes in the genome assembly of MMY were numbered on the basis of previously published flow karyotype of this species.