Genome assembly of the acoel flatworm Symsagittifera roscoffensis, a model for research on body plan evolution and photosymbiosis.

ABSTRACT: Symsagittifera roscoffensis is a well-known member of the order Acoela that lives in symbiosis with the algae Tetraselmis convolutae during its adult stage. Its natural habitat is the eastern coast of the Atlantic, where at specific locations thousands of individuals can be found, mostly, lying in large pools on the surface of sand at low tide. As a member of the Acoela it has been thought as a proxy for ancestral bilaterian animals; however, its phylogenetic position remains still debated. In order to understand the basic structural characteristics of the acoel genome, we sequenced and assembled the genome of aposymbiotic species S. roscoffensis. The size of this genome was measured to be in the range of 910-940 Mb. Sequencing of the genome was performed using PacBio Hi-Fi technology. Hi-

SUBMITTER: Martinez P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9911081 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature