Chromosome-level genome assemblies of the malaria vectorsAnopheles coluzziiandAnopheles arabiensis
Abstract
Background
Anopheles coluzziiandAn. arabiensisbelong to theAn. gambiaecomplex and are among the major malaria vectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, chromosome-level reference genome assemblies are still lacking for these medically important mosquito species.
Findings
In this study, we producedde novochromosome-level genome assemblies forAn. coluzziiandAn. arabiensisusing the long-read Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology and the Hi-C scaffolding approach. We obtained 273.4 Mbp and 256.8 Mbp of the total assemblies forAn. coluzziiandAn. arabiensis, respectively. Each assembly consists of three chromosome-scale scaffolds (X, 2, 3), complete mitochondrion, and unordered contigs identified as autosomal pericentromeric DNA, X pericentromeric DNA, and Y sequences. Comparison of these assemblies with the existing assemblies for these species demonstrated that we obtained improved reference-quality genomes. The new assemblies allowed us to identify genomiccoordinates for the breakpoint regions of fixed and polymorphic chromosomal inversions inAn. coluzziiandAn. arabiensis.
Conclusion
The new chromosome-level assemblies will facilitate functional and population genomic studies inAn. coluzziiandAn. arabiensis. The presented assembly pipeline will accelerate progress toward creating high-quality genome references for other disease vectors.
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