1Key Laboratory of Vegetable Postharvest Processing, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing Key Laboratory of Fruits and Vegetable Storage and Processing, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Horticultural Crops (North China) of Ministry of Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Urban Agriculture (North) of Ministry of Agriculture, The Collaborative Innovation Center of Cucurbit Crops, Beijing Vegetable Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Beijing 100097, China 2College of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071001, China 3Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Food Nutrition and Human Health, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China 4Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China 5Biomarker Technologies Corporation, Beijing 101300, China 6Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA 7U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA 8School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 5RD, UK *Corresponding author. E-mail: f25@cornell.edu,donald. grierson@nottingham.ac.uk,zuojinhua@126.com
Received: 16 Jun 2020 Revised: 21 Sep 2020 Accepted: 23 Sep 2020 Published online: 01 Dec 2020
Abstract
Snake gourd (Trichosanthes anguina L.), which belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family, is a popular ornamental and food crop species with medicinal value and is grown in many parts of the world. Although progress has been made in its genetic improvement, the organization, composition, and evolution of the snake gourd genome remain largely unknown. Here, we report a high-quality genome assembly for snake gourd, comprising 202 contigs, with a total size of 919.8 Mb and an N50 size of 20.1 Mb. These findings indicate that snake gourd has one of the largest genomes of Cucurbitaceae species sequenced to date. The snake gourd genome assembly harbors 22,874 protein-coding genes and 80.0% of the genome consists of repetitive sequences. Phylogenetic analysis reveals that snake gourd is closely related to sponge gourd but diverged from their common ancestor ~33–47 million years ago. The genome sequence reported here serves as a valuable resource for snake gourd genetic research and comparative genomic studies in Cucurbitaceae and other plant species. In addition, fruit transcriptome analysis reveals the candidate genes related to quality traits during snake gourd fruit development and provides a basis for future research on snake gourd fruit development and ripening at the transcript level.
, Donald Grierson8 ,
