Traccatichthys pulcher is an ornamental loach species recognized for its vibrant body coloration, characteristic black dorsal fin margin, and iridescent green lateral stripes. To advance genomic research on this species, a high-quality, near telomere-to-telomere (T2T) genome assembly was generated using PacBio HiFi, ONT ultra-long, and Hi-C sequencing technologies. The resulting haplotype-resolved assembly spanned approximately 623.68 Mb, with a contig N50 of 22.9 Mb, and was anchored onto 24 chromosomes. Telomeric sequences were detected at both ends of eight chromosomes and at one end of 13 chromosomes. Twenty-three chromosomes were entirely gapless, while a single gap was identified in the remaining chromosome. The assembly contained 119.1 Mb of repetitive elements, and 23 967 protein-coding genes were annotated. BUSCO analysis indicated high completeness, with 98.6% of conserved genes recovered. This high-quality, near T2T genome assembly offers a valuable and robust genetic resource for investigating molecular mechanisms, evolutionary processes, conservation biology, and selective breeding of T. pulcher.
Du et al. (Fri,) studied this question.