Regeneration is one of the most fascinating and yet least understood processes of animals. Echinoderms, one of the closest related invertebrate groups to humans, can contribute to our understanding of the genetic basis of regenerative processes. Amongst echinoderms, sea cucumbers have the ability to grow back most of their body parts following injury, including the intestine and nervous tissue. The cellular and molecular events underlying these abilities in sea cucumbers have been most extensively studied in the species Holothuria glaberrima. However, research into the regenerative abilities of this species have been impeded due to the lack of adequate genomic resources. Here, we report the first draft genome assembly of H. glaberrima and demonstrate its value for future genetic studies. Using only short sequencing reads, we assembled the genome into 2,960,762 scaffolds totaling 1.5 gigabases with an N50 of 15 kilobases. Our BUSCO assessment of the genome resulted in 882 (90.2%) complete and partial genes from 978 genes queried. We incorporated transcriptomic data from several different life history stages to annotate 41,076 genes in our final assembly. To demonstrate the usefulness of the genome, we fully annotated the melanotransferrin (Mtf) gene family, which have a potential role in regeneration of the sea cucumber intestine. Using these same data, we extracted the mitochondrial genome, which showed high conservation to that of other holothuroids. Thus, these data will be a critical resource for ongoing studies of regeneration and other studies in sea cucumbers.

中文翻译：

---

海参Holothuria glaberrima的基因组草图，用于再生研究的模型

再生是最引人入胜但鲜为人知的动物过程之一。棘皮动物是与人类关系最密切的无脊椎动物之一，可以帮助我们了解再生过程的遗传基础。在棘皮动物中，海参具有在受伤后恢复其大部分身体部位的能力，包括肠道和神经组织。海参（Holothuria glaberrima）物种对这些能力潜在的细胞和分子事件进行了最广泛的研究。然而，由于缺乏足够的基因组资源，对该物种的再生能力的研究受到阻碍。在这里，我们报告了H. glaberrima基因组组装的初稿并证明其对未来遗传研究的价值。仅使用短测序读取，我们就将基因组组装到2,960,762个支架中，共1.5个千兆位酶，其N50为15碱基。我们对基因组的BUSCO评估从978个基因中查询了882个（90.2％）完整和部分基因。我们并入了几个不同生命史阶段的转录组数据，以在最终装配中注释41,076个基因。为了证明基因组的有用性，我们充分注释了黑素转铁蛋白（Mtf）基因家族，在海参肠的再生中具有潜在作用。使用这些相同的数据，我们提取了线粒体基因组，该基因组比其他类人猿具有更高的保守性。因此，这些数据将是正在进行的海参再生研究和其他研究的重要资源。