Foundational to the Behavioral Plasticity Research Institute's effort is the establishment of annotated genomes of six Schistocerca species to study the molecular basis of phenotypic plasticity in a comparative framework. We generate genome assemblies for S. gregaria, S. americana, S. piceifrons, S. serialis cubense, S. cancellata, and S. nitens, using high-quality long read sequencing technology, combined with chromatin sequencing and assembly expertise.
To approach this challenge, we combined high fidelity long reads generated using Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) sequencers with Hi-C data. PacBio Hifi contigs (contiguous, gap-free DNA sequences) are generated at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) using Hifiasm. The assembled contigs are ordered and oriented into chromosome-length scaffolds using in situ Hi-C data generated at BCM, and 3D-DNA for automated scaffolding followed by Juicebox Assembly Tools for assembly finishing. Less...