Draft Genome Assembly of the Poultry Red Mite, Dermanyssus gallinae Stewart T. G. Burgess, a Kathryn Bartley, a Francesca Nunn, a Harry W. Wright, a Margaret Hughes, b Matthew Gemmell, b Sam Haldenby, b Steve Paterson, b Stephane Rombauts, c,d,e Fiona M. Tomley, f Damer P. Blake, f James Pritchard, f Sabine Schicht, g Christina Strube, g Øivind Øines, h Thomas Van Leeuwen, i Yves Van de Peer, c,d,e,j Alasdair J. Nisbet a a Moredun Research Institute (MRI), Edinburgh, United Kingdom b Centre for Genomic Research, Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom c Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium d VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent, Belgium e Bioinformatics Institute Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium f Department of Pathology and Population Sciences, Royal Veterinary College, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom g Institute for Parasitology, Centre for Infection Medicine, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany h Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Oslo, Norway i Department of Plants and Crops, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium j Department of Biochemistry, Genetics, and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa ABSTRACT The poultry red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae, is a major worldwide con- cern in the egg-laying industry. Here, we report the first draft genome assembly and gene prediction of Dermanyssus gallinae, based on combined PacBio and MinION long-read de novo sequencing. The 959-Mb genome is predicted to encode 14,608 protein-coding genes. I nfestation of hen houses with the poultry red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae, causes major health and welfare concerns for the egg-producing industry worldwide (1, 2), costing the European Union poultry industry €231 million annually (see https://www .pluimveeweb.nl/artikelen/2017/01/schade-bloedluis-21-miljoen-euro/). Control relies on the treatment of premises with acaricide sprays or systemic treatments with isoxazoline-based therapeutics (2, 3). Concerns over residues, environmental contami- nation, and acaricide resistance threaten sustainability and have highlighted interest in developing alternative control methods (1). These novel approaches require compre- hensive genomic information and genome-based tools for gene expression analysis and trait mapping. Adult female D. gallinae mites were harvested from a commercial poultry shed in Scotland, and freshly laid mite eggs were collected over 24 h. Contaminating material was removed by washing in 0.1% benzalkonium chloride before rinsing in double- distilled water (ddH 2 O). Approximately 900 l of eggs were gently homogenized in 12 ml of SDS/RNase A/proteinase K buffer, and genomic DNA (gDNA) was extracted using the SDS-proteinase K method (4). DNA integrity was assessed by gel electropho- resis and quantified using a Qubit double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) broad-range (BR) kit. PacBio sequencing libraries were generated from high-molecular-weight gDNA using the PacBio SMRTbell template prep kit v1.0 according to the manufacturer’s instruc- tions and sequenced using 10 single-molecule real-time (SMRT) cells on a PacBio RS II instrument. Sequences were assembled using Canu v1.6 (5) with an estimated genome size of 500 Mb. The resulting assembly was scaffolded with low-coverage Oxford Received 3 September 2018 Accepted 15 October 2018 Published 8 November 2018 Citation Burgess STG, Bartley K, Nunn F, Wright HW, Hughes M, Gemmell M, Haldenby S, Paterson S, Rombauts S, Tomley FM, Blake DP, Pritchard J, Schicht S, Strube C, Øines Ø, Van Leeuwen T, Van de Peer Y, Nisbet AJ. 2018. Draft genome assembly of the poultry red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae. Microbiol Resour Announc 7:e01221-18. https://doi.org/10.1128/ MRA.01221-18. Editor Julie C. Dunning Hotopp, University of Maryland School of Medicine Copyright © 2018 Burgess et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Address correspondence to Stewart T. G. Burgess, stewart.burgess@moredun.ac.uk. GENOME SEQUENCES crossm Volume 7 Issue 18 e01221-18 mra.asm.org 1 on July 17, 2019 by guest http://mra.asm.org/ Downloaded from