Chromosomal assembly of the Antarctic toothfish (<i>Dissostichus mawsoni</i>) genome using third-generation DNA sequencing and Hi-C technology

Abstract

The Antarctic toothfish, <i>Dissostichus mawsoni</i>, belongs to the Nototheniidae family and is distributed in sub-zero temperatures below S60° latitude in the Southern Ocean. Therefore, it is an attractive model species to study the stenothermal cold-adapted character state. In this study, we successfully generated highly contiguous genome sequences of <i>D. mawsoni</i>, which contained 1 062 scaffolds with a N50 length of 36.98 Mb and longest scaffold length of 46.82 Mb. Repetitive elements accounted for 40.87% of the genome. We also inferred 32 914 protein-coding genes using <i>in silico</i> gene prediction and transcriptome sequencing and detected splicing variants using Isoform-Sequencing (Iso-Seq), which will be invaluable resource for further exploration of the adaptation mechanisms of Antarctic toothfish. This new high-quality reference genome of <i>D. mawsoni</i> provides a fundamental resource for a deeper understanding of cold adaptation and conservation of species.