Chromosome-level genome assembly of Utricularia aurea Lour., a canivorious higher plant with minute genome

Utricularia aurea Lour. is an aquatic herbaceous plant with yellow flowers and a unique insect-trapping mechanism, distributed in several regions of China and other Asian countries. In this study, we assembled a chromosome-scale genome of U. aurea with a size of approximately 180.31 Mb and a contig N50 length of 7.2 Mb. Using Oxford Nanopore long reads and Hi-C sequencing data, 99.99% of the assembled sequences were anchored onto 20 pseudo-chromosomes. We predicted a total of 33,365 protein-coding genes, of which 97.33% were functionally annotated using public databases including NR, GO, KOG, KEGG, and Swissprot. Additionally, we identified 117 rRNAs, 509 sRNAs and 382 tRNAs from the genome. The chromosome-scale Utricularia aurea genome will facilitate investigations into the genomic basis of its carnivorous adaptation, improve our understanding of the evolution history of carnivorous habits in Utricularia, and enrich research on the adaptive evolution of carnivorous plant genomes.