An updated version of the Madagascar periwinkle genome
Clément Cuello, Emily Amor Stander, Hans J. Jansen, Thomas Dugé de Bernonville, Audrey Oudin, Caroline Birer-Williams, Arnaud Lanoue, Nathalie Giglioli Guivarc'h, Nicolas Papon, Ron P. Dirks, Michael K. Jensen, Sarah E. O’Connor, Sébastien Besseau, Vincent Courdavault
Abstract
<ns3:p> The Madagascar periwinkle, <ns3:italic>Catharanthus roseus</ns3:italic> , belongs to the <ns3:italic>Apocynaceae</ns3:italic> family. This medicinal plant, endemic to Madagascar, produces many important drugs including the monoterpene indole alkaloids (MIA) vincristine and vinblastine used to treat cancer worldwide. Here, we provide a new version of the <ns3:italic>C. roseus</ns3:italic> genome sequence obtained through the combination of Oxford Nanopore Technologies long-reads and Illumina short-reads. This more contiguous assembly consists of 173 scaffolds with a total length of 581.128 Mb and an N50 of 12.241 Mb. Using publicly available RNAseq data, 21,061 protein coding genes were predicted and functionally annotated. A total of 42.87% of the genome was annotated as transposable elements, most of them being long-terminal repeats. Together with the increasing access to MIA-producing plant genomes, this updated version should ease evolutionary studies leading to a better understanding of MIA biosynthetic pathway evolution. </ns3:p>