Project description:The fish order Syngnathiformes has been referred to as a collection of misfit fishes, comprising commercially important fish such as red mullets as well as the highly diverse seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons-the well-known family Syngnathidae, with their unique adaptations including male pregnancy. Another ornate member of this order is the species mandarinfish. No less than two types of chromatophores have been discovered in the spectacularly colored mandarinfish: the cyanophore (producing blue color) and the dichromatic cyano-erythrophore (producing blue and red). The phylogenetic position of mandarinfish in Syngnathiformes, and their promise of additional genetic discoveries beyond the chromatophores, made mandarinfish an appealing target for whole-genome sequencing. We used linked sequences to create synthetic long reads, producing a highly contiguous genome assembly for the mandarinfish. The genome assembly comprises 483 Mbp (longest scaffold 29 Mbp), has an N50 of 12 Mbp, and an L50 of 14 scaffolds. The assembly completeness is also high, with 92.6% complete, 4.4% fragmented, and 2.9% missing out of 4584 BUSCO genes found in ray-finned fishes. Outside the family Syngnathidae, the mandarinfish represents one of the most contiguous syngnathiform genome assemblies to date. The mandarinfish genomic resource will likely serve as a high-quality outgroup to syngnathid fish, and furthermore for research on the genomic underpinnings of the evolution of novel pigmentation.
Project description:The complete mitogenome sequence of the ruby dragonet Synchiropus sycorax was first determined using next-generation sequencing strategy in this study. The circle genome was 16,656 bp in length and consisted of 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and 1 control region. The mitochondrial gene arrangement of S. sycorax is similar to those of most other fish species. Results from neighbor-joining phylogenetic analysis showed that S. sycorax clustered with S. splendidus and other species of the family Callionymidae. This study will be valuable for phylogenetic analysis of the genus Synchiropus and the other genera of the order Syngnathiformes.
