Project description:The short-faced mole (Scaptochirus moschatus) belonging to the family Talpidae in the order Eulipotyphla is a good model for studying adaptive evolution of mammals because of its morphological and ecological characteristics. However, the lack of genome of short-faced mole has hindered previous studies. In this study, we assembled the genome of the short-faced mole based on Illumina, PacBio HiFi and Hi-C sequencing, and acquired the genome of the short-faced mole with the size of 2.17 Gb. 99.6% of the assembled genome were identified as complete BUSCOs, including 90.7% as complete single-copy BUSCOs and 8.9% as complete duplicated BUSCOs. The assembled genome was anchored to 24 chromosomes with an anchor rate of 94.33%, of which the 24th chromosome (Chr 24) probably contained the X and Y chromosomes. A total of 21,139 coding genes were predicted, and 8.58 exons per gene were predicted.
Project description:The short-faced mole (Scaptochirus moschatus) is a unique Chinese mammal that lives in burrows for life. In this study, we used Illumina NovaSeq sequencing to obtain the complete mitochondrial genome of the short-faced mole. The total length of the genome is 16,699 bp, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNA), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNA), and 1 control region, with a base composition of 33.82% A, 26.89% T, 25.27% C, and 14.01% G. Phylogenetic analysis of the Talpidae by using complete mitochondrial genome sequences of 14 Talpidae species shows that short-faced mole is closely related to Parascaptor leucura.
Project description:The short-faced moles (Scaptochirus moschata) are unique Chinese mammal that live in burrows for life. They have complex ecological adaptation mechanisms to adapt to perennial underground life. Intestinal microbes play an important role in the ecological adaptation of wild animals. The gut microbiota diversity and its function in short-faced moles' ecological adaptation is a scientific issue worth exploring. In this study, the Illumina HiSeq sequencing platform was used to sequence the V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA genes of 22 short-faced moles' intestinal samples to study the composition and functional structure of their intestinal microbiota. The results showed that in the short-faced moles' intestine, there are four main phyla, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidete. At the family level, Peptostreptococcaceae and Enterobacteriaceae have the highest abundance. At the genus level, Romboutsia is the genus with the highest microbial abundance. According to the KEGG database, the main functions of short-faced mole gut microbes are metabolism, genetic information processing, environmental information processing, and cellular processes. The function of short-faced mole intestinal microbiota is suitable for its long-term burrowing life. No gender difference is found in the composition and function of the short-faced mole intestinal microbiota. There are significant differences in the composition and functional structure of the short-faced mole gut microbiota between samples collected from different habitats. We conferred that this is related to the different environment factors in which they live, especially to the edaphic factors.