Draft Assembly of Diploid A1-genome, Gossypium herbaceum cv. Wagad

Gossypium herbaceum is a species of cotton native to Africa and Asia. As part of a larger effort to investigate structural variation in assorted diploid and polyploidy cotton genomes we have sequenced and assembled the genome of G herbaceum. Cultivated G herbaceum is a A₁-genome diploid from the Old World (Africa) with a genome size of approximately 1.7 Gbps. Long range information is essential in constructing a high quality assembly especially when the genome is expected to be highly repetitive. Here we present a high quality draft genome of G herbaceum (cv. Wagad) using a multi-platform sequencing strategy (PacBio RS II, Dovetail Genomics and BioNano Whole Genome Maps). PacBio RS II (60X) long reads were de novo assembled using FALCON (v 1.7.3) assembler. Illumina sequence reads generated from the Chicago library method from Dovetail genomics and BioNano high-fidelity whole genome maps were used to further scaffolding. Finally the assembly was polished using QUIVER/PILON. This multi-platform long range sequencing strategy will help greatly in attaining high quality de novo reconstructions of genomes. This assembly will be used towards comparative analysis with G arboreum, which is also a domesticated A₂-genome diploid. Not only this will provide a high quality reference genome for G herbaceum, it also provides an opportunity to assess recent technologies such as Dovetail Genomics and BioNano Genomics. The G. herbaceum genome sequence serves as an example to the plant genomics community for those who have an interest in using multi-platform sequencing technologies for de novo genome sequencing.