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- Title
Chromosome‐level genome assembly of the black widow spider Latrodectus elegans illuminates composition and evolution of venom and silk proteins.
- Authors
Wang, Zhongkai; Zhu, Kesen; Li, Haorong; Gao, Lei; Huang, Huanying; Ren, Yandong; Xiang, Hui
- Abstract
Background The black widow spider has both extraordinarily neurotoxic venom and three-dimensional cobwebs composed of diverse types of silk. However, a high-quality reference genome for the black widow spider was still unavailable, which hindered deep understanding and application of the valuable biomass. Findings We assembled the Latrodectus elegans genome, including a genome size of 1.57 Gb with contig N50 of 4.34 Mb and scaffold N50 of 114.31 Mb. Hi-C scaffolding assigned 98.08% of the genome to 14 pseudo-chromosomes, and with BUSCO, completeness analysis revealed that 98.4% of the core eukaryotic genes were completely present in this genome. Annotation of this genome identified that repetitive sequences account for 506.09 Mb (32.30%) and 20,167 protein-coding genes, and specifically, we identified 55 toxin genes and 26 spidroins and provide preliminary analysis of their composition and evolution. Conclusions We present the first chromosome-level genome assembly of a black widow spider and provide substantial toxin and spidroin gene resources. These high-qualified genomic data add valuable resources from a representative spider group and contribute to deep exploration of spider genome evolution, especially in terms of the important issues on the diversification of venom and web-weaving pattern. The sequence data are also firsthand templates for further application of the spider biomass.
- Subjects
SPIDER venom; VENOM; GENOME size; BLACK widow spider; GERMPLASM; GENOMES; SILK
- Publication
GigaScience, 2022, Vol 11, p1
- ISSN
2047-217X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/gigascience/giac049