The draft genome of Actinia tenebrosa reveals insights into toxin evolution

Sea anemones have a wide array of toxic compounds (peptide toxins found in their venom) which have potential uses as therapeutics. To date, the majority of studies characterizing toxins in sea anemones have been restricted to species from the superfamily, Actinioidea. No highly complete draft genomes are currently available for this superfamily, however, highlighting our limited understanding of the genes encoding toxins in this important group. Here we have sequenced, assembled, and annotated a draft genome for Actinia tenebrosa. The genome is estimated to be approximately 255 megabases, with 31,556 protein-coding genes. Quality metrics revealed that this draft genome matches the quality and completeness of other model cnidarian genomes, including Nematostella, Hydra, and Acropora. Phylogenomic analyses revealed strong conservation of the Cnidaria and Hexacorallia core-gene set. However, we found that lineage-specific gene families have undergone significant expansion events compared with shared gene families. Enrichment analysis performed for both gene ontologies, and protein domains revealed that genes encoding toxins contribute to a significant proportion of the lineage-specific genes and gene families. The results make clear that the draft genome of A. tenebrosa will provide insight into the evolution of toxins and lineage-specific genes, and provide an important resource for the discovery of novel biological compounds.