Progress on the Genome Characterisation of the Sydney Rock Oyster (Saccostrea glomerata)

The Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) is considered a delicacy in restaurants worldwide and is an economically important cultured marine species in Australia. For the last century, oyster farming has been the most valuable aquaculture industry in the state of New South Wales, where the production of S. glomerata can reach over USD$26 million per year. Contending with disease and environmental stress are considerable challenges to oyster culture and the manipulation of reproductive condition is vital for production and marketing. However, like many other shellfish, little is known of the molecular mechanisms underpinning these traits. The generation of a high quality draft genome can offer insights into these mechanisms, however, it also presents difficulties due to the high levels of heterozygosity and repetitiveness seen in oysters. Here we present a draft S. glomerata genome using over 300X coverage of illumina small insert paired-end and mate-pair libraries with an additional Chicago library and HiRise scaffolding from Dovetail Genomics. The draft assembly has a total sequence length of 788 Mb, a scaffold number of 10,107 with an N50 of 804 Kb. Ongoing efforts include refining gene models using RNA-Seq data from a range of different tissues. The draft genome will serve as a platform to support genetic breeding programs and has already begun to facilitate further research investigating the influence of neuropeptides in the regulation of reproduction.