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A PacBio Hi-Fi genome assembly of the painter’s mussel Unio pictorum (Linnaeus, 1758)
  • +4
  • André Gomes-dos-Santos,
  • Elsa Froufe,
  • Andre Machado,
  • Jasna Lajtner,
  • Ján Černecký,
  • L Filipe C Castro,
  • Manuel Lopes-Lima
André Gomes-dos-Santos
CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Elsa Froufe
University of Porto Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research
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Andre Machado
University of Porto Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research
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Jasna Lajtner
University of Zagreb Faculty of Science
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Ján Černecký
Slovak Academy of Sciences
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L Filipe C Castro
University of Porto Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research
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Manuel Lopes-Lima
CIBIO/InBio - Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources
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Abstract

Mussels of order Unionida are a group of strictly freshwater bivalves with nearly 1,000 described species, with a dispersed geographic distribution across the world’s freshwater ecosystems. Despite their fundamental ecological importance, they are highly threatened, being the faunal group with the highest records of wild extinctions. To date, only five freshwater mussel species have had their whole genome sequenced, of which only two are from European species. Here, we present the first genome assembly of the painter’s mussel, Unio pictorum (Linnaeus, 1758), the type species representative of the order and the most widespread species of the genus in Europe. We used long-read PacBio HiFi sequencing reads to produce a highly contiguous assembly that will pave the way for the study of European freshwater mussels in the Genome Era.