A Reference Genome of Bursaphelenchus mucronatus Provides New Resources for Revealing Its Displacement by Pinewood Nematode

Genes

Shuangyang Wu¹  Jianghua Sun¹  Jacob Wickham¹  Lilin Zhao¹  Yujia Xiang¹  Jie Meng¹  Xinyu Tan²  Sen Wang²  Shenghan Gao²  Songnian Hu²  Sainan Luo²  Haiying Yu² 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;

关键词: Bursaphelenchus mucronatus;    Bursaphelenchus xylophilus;    Comparative genomics;    GPCR;   

DOI  :  10.3390/genes11050570

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The Bursaphelenchus mucronatus, which was highly similar with Bursaphelenchus xylophilus in terms of morphological characteristics and biological properties—but had weaker pathogenicity to forests—was a native species often displaced by B. xylophilus when occupying the same niche. Since the draft genome of the invasive B. xylophilus has been published, the absence of a reference genome of B. mucronatus still prevents us from understanding the molecular evidences behind competitive displacement. In this study, we employed Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing and a Hi-C scaffolding approach to yield a near chromosome-level assembly of B. mucronatus, including six pseudo-chromosomes. The assembly size is 73 Mb, with scaffold N50 of 11.50 Mb and contig N50 of 1.48 Mb. Comparative genomics results showed high similarity between B. xylophilus and B. mucronatus. However, the losing of orphan genes and species-specific orthologous genes in B. mucronatus may indicate weaker adaptability to the environment. The gene family contractions of GPCRs (G Protein-Coupled Receptors) and cellulases in B. mucronatus may jointly contribute to its displacement by B. xylophilus. Overall, we introduced a valuable genomic resource for molecular and evolutionary studies of B. mucronatus, especially for studying the competitive displacement by the pinewood nematode, which could help us control the pathogenicity of pine wilt diseases.

【 授权许可】

Unknown