SEQUENCING AND DE NOVO DRAFT ASSEMBLIES OF A FATHEAD MINNOW (PIMEPHALES PROMELAS) REFERENCE GENOME

The present study was undertaken to provide the foundation for development of genome-scale resources for the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), an important model organism widely used in both aquatic toxicology research and regulatory testing. The authors report on the first sequencing and 2 draft assemblies for the reference genome of this species. Approximately 120x sequence coverage was achieved via Illumina sequencing of a combination of paired-end, mate-pair, and fosmid libraries. Evaluation and comparison of these assemblies demonstrate that they are of sufficient quality to be useful for genome-enabled studies, with 418 of 458 (91%) conserved eukaryotic genes mapping to at least 1 of the assemblies. In addition to its immediate utility, the present work provides a strong foundation on which to build further refinements of a reference genome for the fathead minnow. (C) 2015 SETAC