Abstract
The Tetraodontidae family encompasses several species which attract scientific interest in terms of their ecology and evolution. The silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus) is a well-known “invasive sprinter” that has invaded and spread, in less than a decade, throughout the Eastern and part of the Western Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal. In this study, we built and analysed the first near-chromosome level genome assembly of L. sceleratus and explored its evolutionary landscape. Through a phylogenomic analysis, we positioned L. sceleratus closer to T. nigroviridis, compared to other members of the family, while gene family evolution analysis revealed that genes associated with the immune response have experienced rapid expansion, providing a genetic basis for studying how L. sceleratus is able to achieve highly successful colonisation. Moreover, we found that voltage-gated sodium channel (NaV 1.4) mutations previously connected to tetrodotoxin resistance in other pufferfishes are not found in L. sceleratus, highlighting the complex evolution of this trait. The high-quality genome assembly built here is expected to set the ground for future studies on the species biology.
Highlights
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 initiated a process of biological invasions from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean, an event commonly known as Lessepsian migration (Por, 1971; Golani and Appelbaum-Golani, 1977)
We found 98% (4,513 out of 4,584) of the genes included in the BUSCO Actinopterygian gene set
We investigated whether the sequences of voltage-gated sodium channels (SCN4AA, SCN4AB) in L. sceleratus carry the previously reported mutations associated with TTX resistance in other pufferfish
Summary
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 initiated a process of biological invasions from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean, an event commonly known as Lessepsian migration (Por, 1971; Golani and Appelbaum-Golani, 1977). This influx of marine organisms has greatly impacted the local communities in ecological, evolutionary (Sax et al, 2007), and economical terms (Arim et al, 2006). Lessepsian fishes comprise a significant percentage of all recorded invasive species in the Mediterranean Sea (Zenetos et al, 2012) and may be causing several indigenous species displacements (Golani and Appelbaum-Golani, 2010).
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