Chromosome-level genome assembly of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle Pelodiscus sinensis

The Chinese soft-shelled turtle Pelodiscus sinensis is an economically important aquaculture species in Asia for its high nutritional and medicinal values. In recent years, with the continuous development of the P. sinensis breeding industry, the problems of germplasm resource degradation and population mixing have become increasingly prominent. In this study, a total of 471.77 Gb of sequencing data was generated, including 87.28 Gb (39.67×) of PacBio HiFi reads, 104.21 (47.36×) Gb of Illumina reads, 241.66 Gb (109.84×) of Hi-C data, and 38.62 Gb of RNA sequencing data. The final genome contained a length of 2.24 Gb with a contig N50 of 107.61 Mb and a scaffold N50 of 129.58 Mb. The final 2.14 Gb (95.42%) assembled genome sequences were anchored on 33 chromosomes, with a chromosome length that ranged from 13.04 Mb to 336.74 Mb. A total of 21,532 protein-coding genes were predicted and 21,149 genes were functionally annotated. The high-quality genome assembled in this study will represent a significant contribution to germplasm resources conservation of P. sinensis.