Published September 25, 2025 | Version 1

ERGA-BGE reference genome of Holothuria (Platyperona) sanctori: a sea cucumber from the Mediterranean Sea

Description

Holothuria sanctori is a common species of sea cucumber found in the Mediterranean Sea and the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. It typically inhabits shallow rocky and sandy seabeds, where it plays a key ecological role as a sediment engineer processing organic matter ts and thereby contributing to nutrient cycling. As an edible species, H. sanctori is harvested in several countries. Although it is currently listed as a species of "Least Concern" on the IUCN Red List, the absence of a regulatory framework to prevent overexploitation poses a risk of population decline. Given its ecological significance and economic value , H. sanctori has become a focal point in both marine conservation and aquaculture research. The entirety of the genome sequence was assembled into 23 contiguous chromosomal pseudomolecules. This chromosome-level assembly encompasses 1.2 Gb, composed of 135 contigs and 46 scaffolds, with contig and scaffold N50 values of 19.9 Mb and 50.7 Mb, respectively.

Files

openreseurope-5-22549.pdf

Files (1.6 MB)

Name Size Download all
md5:6bc3ff5cdfd65d71100b32479de2dd5f
1.6 MB Preview Download

Additional details

References

  • Borrero-Pérez GH, Gómez-Zurita J, González-Wangüemert M (2010). Molecular systematics of the genus in the Mediterranean and Northeastern Atlantic and a molecular clock for the diversification of the Holothuriidae (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea). Mol Phylogenet Evol. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.08.019
  • Caulier G, Mezali K, Soualili DL (2016). Chemical characterization of saponins contained in the body wall and the Cuvierian tubules of the sea cucumber (Delle Chiaje, 1823). Biochem Syst Ecol. doi:10.1016/j.bse.2016.06.005
  • Challis R, Kumar S, Sotero-Caio C (2023). Genomes on a Tree (GoaT): a versatile, scalable search engine for genomic and sequencing project metadata across the eukaryotic Tree of Life [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]. Wellcome Open Res. doi:10.12688/wellcomeopenres.18658.1
  • Cheng H, Concepcion GT, Feng X (2021). Haplotype-resolved assembly using phased assembly graphs with hifiasm. Nat Methods. doi:10.1038/s41592-020-01056-5
  • Guan D, McCarthy SA, Wood J (2020). Identifying and removing haplotypic duplication in primary genome assemblies. Bioinformatics. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa025
  • Manni M, Berkeley MR, Seppey M (2021). BUSCO update: novel and streamlined workflows along with broader and deeper phylogenetic coverage for scoring of eukaryotic, prokaryotic, and viral genomes. Mol Biol Evol. doi:10.1093/molbev/msab199
  • Mazzoni CJ, Ciofi C, Waterhouse RM (2023). Biodiversity: an atlas of European reference genomes. Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-023-02229-w
  • Moussa R, Wirawati I (2018). Observations on some biological characteristics of and from Mediterranean Egypt. Int J Fish Aquat Stud.
  • Navarro PG, Garcia-Sanz S, Tuya F (2012). Reproductive biology of the sea cucumber (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea). Sci Mar. doi:10.3989/scimar.03543.15B
  • Rhie A, Walenz BP, Koren S (2020). Merqury: reference-free quality, completeness, and phasing assessment for genome assemblies. Genome Biol. doi:10.1186/s13059-020-02134-9
  • (2019). UniProt: a worldwide hub of protein knowledge. Nucleic Acids Res. doi:10.1093/nar/gky1049
  • Zhou C, Brown M, Blaxter M (2024). Oatk: a assembly tool for complex plant organelle genomes. bioRxiv. doi:10.1101/2024.10.23.619857
  • Zhou C, McCarthy SA, Durbin R (2023). YaHS: Yet another Hi-C Scaffolding tool. Bioinformatics. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btac808