The draft genome sequence of the grove snail Cepaea nemoralis

Saenko, Suzanne V.; Groenenberg, Dick S.J.; Davison, Angus; Schilthuizen, Menno

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2021. Studies on the shell color and banding polymorphism of the grove snail Cepaea nemoralis and the sister taxon Cepaea hortensis have provided compelling evidence for the fundamental role of natural selection in promoting and maintaining intraspecific variation. More recently, Cepaea has been the focus of citizen science projects on shell color evolution in relation to climate change and urbanization. C. nemoralis is particularly useful for studies on the genetics of shell polymorphism and the evolution of “supergenes,” as well as evo-devo studies of shell biomineralization, because it is relatively easily maintained in captivity. However, an absence of genomic resources for C. nemoralis has generally hindered detailed genetic and molecular investigations. We therefore generated ~23 coverage long-read data for the ~3.5 Gb genome, and produced a draft assembly composed of 28,537 contigs with the N50 length of 333 kb. Genome completeness, estimated by BUSCO using the metazoa dataset, was 91%. Repetitive regions cover over 77% of the genome. A total of 43,519 protein-coding genes were predicted in the assembled genome, and 97.3% of these were functionally annotated from either sequence homology or protein signature searches. This first assembled and annotated genome sequence for a helicoid snail, a large group that includes edible species, agricultural pests, and parasite hosts, will be a core resource for identifying the loci that determine the shell polymorphism, as well as in a wide range of analyses in evolutionary and developmental biology, and snail biology in general.

Citation

Saenko, S. V., Groenenberg, D. S., Davison, A., & Schilthuizen, M. (2021). The draft genome sequence of the grove snail Cepaea nemoralis. G3, 11(2), Article jkaa071. https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkaa071

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 22, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jan 11, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Deposit Date: Oct 2, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 11, 2023
• Journal: G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics
• Electronic ISSN: 2160-1836
• Publisher: Genetics Society of America
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: jkaa071
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkaa071
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5407849
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/g3journal/article/11/2/jkaa071/6080775