De novo chromosome-level assembly of the Centella asiatica genome.

Centella asiatica is a herbaceous, perennial species indigenous to India and Southeast Asia. C. asiatica possesses several medicinal properties: anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, wound healing and memory enhancing. The lack of available genomics resources significantly impedes the improvement of C. asiatica varieties through molecular breeding. Here, we combined the 10× Genomics linked-read technology and the long-range HiC technique to obtain the genome assembly. The final assembly contained nine pseudomolecules, corresponding to the haploid chromosome number in C. asiatica. These nine chromosomes covered 402,536,584 bases or 93.6% of the 430-Mb assembly. Comparative genomics analyses based on single-copy orthologous genes showed that C. asiatica and the common ancestor of Coriandrum sativum (coriander) and Daucus carota (carrot) diverged about 48 million years ago. This assembly provides a valuable reference genome for future molecular studies, varietal development through marker-assisted breeding and comparative genomics studies in C. asiatica. • We used the 10x Genomics and HiC technologies to obtain the first chromosome-scale genome assembly for Centella asiatica • The final assembly contained nine pseudomolecules, covering 402,536,584 bases or 93.6% of the 430-Mb assembly • We found evidence that C. asiatica might have experienced a whole genome duplication followed by subsequent diploidization • Comparative genomics analyses based on single-copy orthologous genes placed C. asiatica in the Euasterids I clade [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]