Complete gammaproteobacterial endosymbiont genome assembly from a seep tubeworm Lamellibrachia satsuma.

Abstract

Siboglinid tubeworms thrive in hydrothermal vent and seep habitats via a symbiotic relationship with chemosynthetic bacteria. Difficulties in culturing tubeworms and their symbionts in a laboratory setting have hindered the study of host-microbe interactions. Therefore, released symbiont genomes are fragmented, thereby limiting the data available on the genome that affect subsequent analyses. Here, we present a complete genome of gammaproteobacterial endosymbiont from the tubeworm Lamellibrachia satsuma collected from a seep in Kagoshima Bay, assembled using a hybrid approach that combines sequences generated from the Illumina and Oxford Nano-pore platforms. The genome consists of a single circular chromosome with an assembly size of 4,323,754 bp and a GC content of 53.9% with 3,624 protein-coding genes. The genome is of high quality and contains no assembly gaps, while the completeness and contamination are 99.33% and 2.73%, respectively. Comparative genome analysis revealed a total of 1,724 gene clusters shared in the vent and seep tubeworm symbionts, while 294 genes were found exclusively in L. satsuma symbionts such as transposons, genes for defense mechanisms, and inorganic ion transportations. The addition of this complete endosymbiont genome assembly would be valuable for comparative studies particularly with tubeworm symbiont genomes as well as with other chemosynthetic microbial communities.