Draft genome of Tanacetum cinerariifolium, the natural source of mosquito coil

Pyrethrum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium), which is a perennial Asteraceae plant with white daisy-like flowers, is the original source of mosquito coils and is known for the biosynthesis of the pyrethrin class of natural insecticides. However, the molecular basis of the production of pyrethrins by T. cinerariifolium has yet to be fully elucidated. Here, we present the 7.1-Gb draft genome of T. cinerariifolium, consisting of 2,016,451 scaffolds and 60,080 genes predicted with high confidence. Notably, analyses of transposable elements (TEs) indicated that TEs occupy 33.84% of the genome sequence. Furthermore, TEs of the sire and oryco clades were found to be enriched in the T. cinerariifolium-specific evolutionary lineage, occupying a total of 13% of the genome sequence, a proportion approximately 8-fold higher than that in other plants. InterProScan analysis demonstrated that biodefense-related toxic proteins (e.g., ribosome inactivating proteins), signal transduction-related proteins (e.g., histidine kinases), and metabolic enzymes (e.g., lipoxygenases, acyl-CoA dehydrogenases/oxygenases, and P450s) are also highly enriched in the T. cinerariifolium genome. Molecular phylogenetic analysis detected a variety of enzymes with genus-specific multiplication, including both common enzymes and others that appear to be specific to pyrethrin biosynthesis. Together, these data identify possible novel components of the pyrethrin biosynthesis pathway and provide new insights into the unique genomic features of T. cinerariifolium.