Abstract
Blue tilapia (Oreochromis aureus) has been an economically important fish in Asian countries. It can grow and reproduce in both freshwater and brackish water conditions, whereas it is also considered as a significant invasive species around the world. This species has been widely used as the hybridization parent(s) for tilapia breeding with a major aim to produce novel strains. However, available genomic resources are still limited for this important tilapia species. Here, we for the first time sequenced and assembled a draft genome for a seawater cultured blue tilapia (0.92 Gb), with 97.8% completeness and a scaffold N50 of 1.1 Mb, which suggests a relatively high quality of this genome assembly. We also predicted 23,117 protein-coding genes in the blue tilapia genome. Comparisons of predicted antimicrobial peptides between the blue tilapia and its close relative Nile tilapia proved that these immunological genes are highly similar with a genome-wide scattering distribution. As a valuable genetic resource, our blue tilapia genome assembly will benefit for biomedical researches and practical molecular breeding for high resistance to various diseases, which have been a critical problem in the aquaculture of tilapias.
Highlights
Tilapias are world famous for their high yields, rapid growth rates, and powerful adaptivity to various environments
We estimated the genome size of blue tilapia to be approximately 1.02 Gb using the routine K-mer approach [16] (Figure 1), which is slightly larger than that the2018, Nile16,tilapia
Due to the high completeness and the long scaffold N50 (Section 2.1), our blue tilapia genome assembly is of high quality
Summary
Tilapias are world famous for their high yields, rapid growth rates, and powerful adaptivity to various environments. They were cultivated by human beings 2500 years ago, and they have become the second most important aquaculture fish globally [1]. Tilapias have been spread to many regions beyond their native ranges with a surprised worldwide distribution [2]. By far, they have been mainly classified into five genera, including Sarotherodon, Oreochromis, Tilapia, Tristromella and Danakilia [2].
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