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Creators/Authors contains: "Wang, Xiaozhu"

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  1. null (Ed.)
  2. Jewel wasps in the genus of Nasonia are parasitoids with haplodiploidy sex determination, rapid development and are easy to culture in the laboratory. They are excellent models for insect genetics, genomics, epigenetics, development, and evolution. Nasonia vitripennis ( Nv ) and N. giraulti ( Ng ) are closely-related species that can be intercrossed, particularly after removal of the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia , which serve as a powerful tool to map and positionally clone morphological, behavioral, expression and methylation phenotypes. The Nv reference genome was assembled using Sanger, PacBio and Nanopore approaches and annotated with extensive RNA-seq data. In contrast, Ng genome is only available through low coverage resequencing. Therefore, de novo Ng assembly is in urgent need to advance this system. In this study, we report a high-quality Ng assembly using 10X Genomics linked-reads with 670X sequencing depth. The current assembly has a genome size of 259,040,977 bp in 3,160 scaffolds with 38.05% G-C and a 98.6% BUSCO completeness score. 97% of the RNA reads are perfectly aligned to the genome, indicating high quality in contiguity and completeness. A total of 14,777 genes are annotated in the Ng genome, and 72% of the annotated genes have a one-to-one ortholog in the Nv genome. We reported 5 million Ng-Nv SNPs which will facility mapping and population genomic studies in Nasonia . In addition, 42 Ng -specific genes were identified by comparing with Nv genome and annotation. This is the first de novo assembly for this important species in the Nasonia model system, providing a useful new genomic toolkit. 
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  3. Wolbachia are widespread intracellular bacteria that mediate many important biological processes in arthropod species. In this study, we identified 210 conserved single-copy genes in 33 genome-sequenced Wolbachia strains in the A, B, C, D, E and F supergroups. Phylogenomic analyses with these core genes indicate that all 33 Wolbachia strains maintain the supergroup relationship, which was classified previously based on the multilocus sequence typing (MLST) genes. Using an interclade recombination screening method, 14 inter-supergroup recombination events were discovered in six genes (2.9%) among 210 single copy orthologs. This finding suggests a relatively low frequency of intergroup recombination. Interestingly, they have occurred not only between A and B supergroups (9 events), but also between A and E supergroups (5 events). Maintenance of such transfers suggests possible roles in Wolbachia infection related functions. Comparisons of strain divergence using the five genes of the MLST system show a high correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient r = 0.98) between MLST and whole genome divergences, indicating that MLST is a reliable method for identifying related strains when whole genome data are not available. The phylogenomic analysis and the identified core gene set in our study will serve as a valuable foundation for strain identification and the investigation of recombination and genome evolution in Wolbachia. 
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