Assembly ASM291031v2 (Genbank: GCA_002910315.2) identified as assembly of the Northern Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma malma) genome, and not the Arctic char (S. alpinus) genome

• Main Author: Shedko, S. V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2019
• Subjects: Genomics q-bio.GN; Populations and Evolution q-bio.PE; FOS Biological sciences; Arctic; Canada; Christensen; Nunavut; Varden
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1912.02474; https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.02474

To date, twelve complete genomes representing eleven species belonging to six genera have been sequenced in salmonids. For the genus Salvelinus, it was supposed to sequence the genome of Arctic char, one of the most variable species of vertebrate animals. Sequencing was carried out (Christensen et al., 2018) using the tissues of the female IW2-2015 obtained from the company engaged in industrial aquaculture of chars - Icy Waters Ltd. The company exploits two of its own broodstocks - NL and TR, originating from the chars from the Nauyuk Lake and the Tree River (Nunavut, Canada). Since the complete mitochondrial genome of the female IW2-2015 was absent in the published assembly ASM291031v2, we determined its type and complete sequence from the sequence read archives taken from Genbank. It was found that the female's mitogenome belongs to the BERING haplogroup, which is characteristic of Northern Dolly Varden S. malma malma. Analysis of other unlinked diagnostic loci encoded by nuclear DNA (ITS1, RAG1, SFO-12, SFO-18, SMM-21) also revealed distinctive characters of Northern Dolly Varden in female IW2-2015. It was concluded that the genomic assembly ASM291031v2 was obtained not from an individual of Arctic char S. alpinus, but from an individual of a related species - Northern Dolly Varden S. malma malma. The identical to the IW2-2015 female characteristics of diagnostic loci were found in other individuals from the broodstock TR. Apparently, the broodstock TR is entirely a strain derived from Northern Dolly Varden. Since assembly ASM291031v2 was obtained from a specimen originated from the marginal population of Northern Dolly Varden (Tree R.) isolated from the main range of the species and with some traces of introgressive hybridization, this assembly can hardly be considered as a description of a typical genome of S. malma malma. : 15 pages, in Russian; typos corrected