The largest genome map of an animal -- the genome map of Antarctic krill has been deciphered

    An international research team formed by the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, the Huada Genomics Research Institute of Qingdao, the Alfred Wegener Institute of Germany, and the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization recently completed the international research team. The Antarctic krill genome assembly, the largest animal genome reference sequence so far, was revealed, and the molecular basis of Antarctic krill adaptation to extreme environments and historical evolution of populations was revealed, providing an important theoretical basis for the rational development and utilization of Antarctic krill resources.

   On March 2, the top international academic journal "Cell" ("Cell") published the research results online under the title "Mapping of a Huge Highly Repeated Genome Map Reveals the Environmental Adaptation Mechanism and Population Evolution History of Antarctic Krill".

  It is reported that this is the first paper published in the main journal of "Cell" ("Cell") in the field of marine fishery in my country, and it also makes my country enter the international leading position in the field of research on Antarctic krill resources and even polar ecosystems.

  On March 3, the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences and the Qingdao BGI Institute jointly held a press conference on Antarctic krill research results. The co-first author and corresponding author of the article, the Genome Director Shao Changwei introduced that the Antarctic krill genome is very large, about 16 times that of the human genome, and has high repetition characteristics. Genome assembly is the biggest challenge hindering breakthroughs in genomics research of this species.

  This study constructed an Antarctic krill genome sequence of about 48GB, which is the largest animal genome reference sequence so far, which is 20%-30% larger than the published ultra-large genomes of African lungfish and Australian lungfish.

Shao Changwei said: "This study not only deciphered the genome sequence of Antarctic krill, but also analyzed the molecular mechanism of its important traits, including growth, reproduction, energy metabolism and extreme environmental adaptability, etc., which provided us with a basis for in-depth understanding of Antarctic krill. , and also provides a theoretical basis for the rational development and utilization of Antarctic krill resources."

Source: Dazhong Daily