The leopard coral grouper, Plectropomus leopardus, belonging to the family Epinephelinae, is a carnivorous coral reef fish widely distributed in tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo‐Pacific. Due to its appealing body appearance and delicious taste, P. leopardus has become a popular commercial fish for aquaculture in many countries. However, the lack of genomic and molecular resources for P. leopardus has hindered study of its biology and genomic breeding programmes. Here we report the de novo sequencing and assembly of the P. leopardus genome using a combination of 10 × Genomics, high‐throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi‐C) and PacBio long‐read sequencing technologies. The genome assembly has a total length of 881.55 Mb with a scaffold N50 of 34.15 Mb, consisting of 24 pseudochromosome scaffolds. busco analysis showed that 97.2% of the conserved single‐copy genes were retrieved, indicating the assembly was almost entire. We predicted 25,248 protein‐coding genes, among which 96.5% were functionally annotated. Comparative genomic analyses revealed that gene family expansions in P. leopardus were associated with immune‐related pathways. In addition, we identified 5,178,453 single nucleotide polymorphisms based on genome resequencing of 54 individuals. The P. leopardus genome and genomic variation data provide valuable genomic resources for studies of its genetics, evolution and biology. In particular, it is expected to benefit the development of genomic breeding programmes in the farming industry.

中文翻译：

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豹珊瑚石斑鱼 Plectropomus leopardus 的从头测序和染色体规模的基因组组装。

豹珊瑚石斑鱼（Plectropomus leopardus）属于石斑鱼科，是一种广泛分布于印度洋-太平洋热带和亚热带水域的珊瑚礁肉食性鱼类。由于其诱人的体型和美味的口感，P. leopardus已成为许多国家水产养殖的热门商品鱼。然而，P. leopardus基因组和分子资源的缺乏阻碍了对其生物学和基因组育种计划的研究。在这里，我们报告了P. leopardus 的从头测序和组装基因组使用 10 × Genomics、高通量染色体构象捕获 (Hi-C) 和 PacBio 长读长测序技术的组合。基因组组装的总长度为 881.55 Mb，支架 N50 为 34.15 Mb，由 24 个假染色体支架组成。busco分析显示 97.2% 的保守单拷贝基因被检索到，表明组装几乎是完整的。我们预测了 25,248 个蛋白质编码基因，其中 96.5% 被功能注释。比较基因组分析表明，P. leopardus 的基因家族扩展与免疫相关通路有关。此外，我们基于 54 个个体的基因组重测序鉴定了 5,178,453 个单核苷酸多态性。该P.虎猫属基因组和基因组变异数据为其遗传学、进化和生物学研究提供了宝贵的基因组资源。特别是，预计将有利于农业基因组育种计划的发展。