The haplotype-resolved and near telomere-to-telomere genome assembly for Hypsebarbus vernayi

Hypsibarbus vernayi (2n = 50), a medium-sized barb distributed in the Mekong River basin, is widely consumed in its native range and holds significant potential for commercial aquaculture development. To date, there is no high-quality genome available for this species. In this study, we generated a haplotype-resolved and near-T2T assembly of H. vernayi utilizing PacBio HiFi, Oxford Nanopore and Hi-C technologies. The assembled genome sizes for two haplotypes are 709 Mb and 707 Mb with scaffold N50 of 27.8 Mb and 26.8 Mb, respectively. A 262-bp satellite DNA sequence was identified as the centromeric repeats that appeared on almost all chromosomes. The diploid genome contains only eight gaps: one and seven in the two haploid genomes, respectively. Furthermore, 31 out of 50 chromosomes have telomeres assembled at both ends. This high-quality reference genome is expected to facilitate the breeding efforts for this species.