Draft genome and transcriptome of Nepenthes mirabilis, a carnivorous plant in China

Nepenthes belongs to the monotypic family Nepenthaceae, one of the largest carnivorous plant families. Nepenthes species show impressive adaptive radiation and suffer from being overexploited in nature. Nepenthes mirabilis is the most widely distributed species and the only Nepenthes species that is naturally distributed within China. Herein, we reported the genome and transcriptome assemblies of N. mirabilis. The assemblies will be useful resources for comparative genomics, to understand the adaptation and conservation of carnivorous species.

This work produced ~ 139.5 Gb N. mirabilis whole genome sequencing reads using leaf tissues, and ~ 21.7 Gb and ~ 27.9 Gb of raw RNA-seq reads for its leaves and flowers, respectively. Transcriptome assembly obtained 339,802 transcripts, in which 79,758 open reading frames (ORFs) were identified. Function analysis indicated that these ORFs were mainly associated with proteolysis and DNA integration. The assembled genome was 691,409,685 bp with 159,555 contigs/scaffolds and an N50 of 10,307 bp. The BUSCO assessment of the assembled genome and transcriptome indicated 91.1% and 93.7% completeness, respectively. A total of 42,961 genes were predicted in the genome identified, coding for 45,461 proteins. The predicted genes were annotated using multiple databases, facilitating future functional analyses of them. This is the first genome report on the Nepenthaceae family.