Abstract
Silver sillago, Sillago sihama is a member of the family Sillaginidae
and found in all Chinese inshore waters. It is an emerging commercial
marine aquaculture species in China. In this study, high-quality
chromosome-level reference genome of S. sihama was first constructed
using PacBio Sequel sequencing and high-throughput chromosome
conformation capture (Hi-C) technique. A total of 66.16 Gb clean reads
were generated by PacBio sequencing platforms. The genome-scale was
521.63 Mb with 556 contigs, and 13.54 Mb of contig N50 length.
Additionally, Hi-C scaffolding of the genome resulted in 24 chromosomes
containing 96.93 % of the total assembled sequences. A total of 23,959
protein-coding genes were predicted in the genome, and 96.51 % of the
genes were functionally annotated in public databases. A total of 71.86
Mb repetitive elements were detected, accounting for 13.78% of the
genome. The phylogenetic relationships of silver sillago with other
teleosts showed that silver sillago was separated from the common
ancestor of S. sinica about 7.92 million years ago. Comparative genomic
analysis of silver sillago with other teleosts showed that 45 unique and
100 expansion gene families were identified in silver sillago. Expansion
gene families were involved in immune and olfactory receptors. In this
study, the genomic resources provide valuable reference genomes for
functional genomics research of silver sillago.