Supporting data for "Genome sequencing of the winged midge, Parochlus steinenii, from the Antarctic Peninsula"

• Main Authors: Sanghee Kim, Mijin Oh, Woongsic Jung, Joonho Park, Han-Gu Choi, Shin, Seung Chul
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: GigaScience Database 2016
• Subjects: Genomic; Parochlus steinenii; cold tolerant; Antarctic midge; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Belgica antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100256; http://gigadb.org/dataset/100256

In the Antarctic, only two species of Chironomidae occur naturally—the wingless midge, Belgica antarctica, and the winged midge, Parochlus steinenii. B. antarctica is an extremophile with unusual adaptations. The larvae of B. antarctica are desiccation- and freeze-tolerant and the adults are wingless. Recently, the compact genome of B. antarctica was reported and it is the first Antarctic eukaryote to be sequenced. Although they occur naturally in the Antarctic with B. antarctica, the larvae of P. steinenii are cold-tolerant but not freeze-tolerant and the adults are winged. Differences in adaptations in the Antarctic midges are interesting in terms of evolutionary processes under an extreme environment. Herein, we provide another genome of an Antarctic midge to elucidate the evolution of these species. The draft genome of P. steinenii had a total size of 138 Mbp, comprising 9,513 contigs with an N50 contig size of 34,110 bp, and a GC content of 32.2%. Overall, 13,468 genes were predicted using the MAKER annotation pipeline, and gene ontology classified 10,801 (80.2%) predicted genes to a function. Compared to the assembled genome architecture of B. antarctica, that of P. steinenii was approximately 50 Mbp longer with 6.2-fold more repeat sequences, whereas gene regions were similarly compact as B. antarctica.