Published October 27, 2021 | Version v1
Conference paper

High-quality genome assemblies of corals highlight the specifics of their long lifespan

Contributors

Others:

Description

During the last decade, several coral genomes have been sequenced allowing a betterunderstanding of these symbiotic organisms threatened by climate change. Scleractiniancorals have an important ecological role and are an essential element of the reefs, whichshelter a great diversity of species. Here we generated two coral genomes, Porites lobataand Pocillopora meandrina with unprecedented contiguity that allowed us to study the functional organization of these genomes. We annotated their gene catalogue and reported arelatively higher gene number than that found in other corals. This finding is explained bya high number of tandemly duplicated genes, which are generally difficult to assemble andannotate, especially using short-read technologies. These duplicated genes, which originatefrom multiple and distinct events in the coral lineage, belong to gene-families linked to theimmune system and disease-resistance which we suggest to be a functional consequence oftheir long lifespan.

Abstract

International audience

Additional details

Identifiers

URL
https://hal.science/hal-04440766
URN
urn:oai:HAL:hal-04440766v1

Origin repository

Origin repository
UNICA