High-Quality Draft Genome of Gossypium herbaceum cv. Wagad

As part of a larger effort to investigate structural variation in assorted diploid and polyploidy cotton genomes we have sequenced and assembled Gossypium herbaceum. Cultivated Gossypium herbaceum is a A-genome diploid from the Old World with a genome size of approximately 1.7 Gbp. Here we present a high quality draft genome of Gossypium herbaceum (cv. Wagad) using a multi-platform sequencing strategy (Illumina HiSeq, Dovetail Genomics, PacBio RS II, and BioNano Whole Genome Maps). The multi-platform sequencing strategy will help immensely in achieving high quality de novo reconstructions of genomes, which requires accurate long-range contiguity. The sequence data and the final assembly will be used towards comparative analysis with Gossypium arboreum, which is also a domesticated A-genome diploid. The final goals of this project is to provide a high quality reference genome for Gossypium herbaceum, assess recent technologies such as Dovetail Genomics and BioNano Genomics and also, serve as a model to the plant genomics community who has an interest in using multi-platform sequencing technologies for de novo genome sequencing.