Gene Family Evolution in the Pea Aphid Based on Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly

Genome structural variations, including duplications, deletions, insertions, and inversions, are central in the evolution of eukaryotic genomes. However, structural variations present challenges for high-quality genome assembly, hampering efforts to understand the evolution of gene families and genome architecture. An example is the genome of the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) for which the current assembly is composed of thousands of short scaffolds, many of which are known to be misassembled. Here, we present an improved version of the A. pisum genome based on the use of two long-range proximity ligation methods. The new assembly contains four long scaffolds (40-170 Mb), corresponding to the three autosomes and the X chromosome of A. pisum, and encompassing 86% of the new assembly. Assembly accuracy is supported by several quality assessments. Using this assembly, we identify the chromosomal locations and relative ages of duplication events, and the locations of horizontally acquired genes. The improved assembly illuminates the mode of gene family evolution by providing proximity information between paralogs. By estimating nucleotide polymorphism and coverage depth from resequencing data, we determined that many short scaffolds not assembling to chromosomes represent hemizygous regions, which are especially frequent on the highly repetitive X chromosome. Aligning the X-linked aphicarus region, responsible for male wing dimorphism, to the new assembly revealed a 50-kb deletion that cosegregates with the winged male phenotype in some clones. These results show that long-range scaffolding methods can substantially improve assemblies of repetitive genomes and facilitate study of gene family evolution and structural variation.