Prototheca wickerhamii is a non-photosynthetic microalgal species that has been implicated in opportunistic human infections. Understanding its genomic features is crucial for both medical applications and symbiosis research. We generated high-quality genome assemblies for two strains of Prototheca wickerhamii, Pw26 and PwS1, using PacBio HiFi reads. The assemblies were evaluated for completeness and accuracy using BUSCO analysis. The assembled genomes for Pw26 and PwS1 were 17.8 MB and 17.4 MB, respectively, with contig N50 values of 1.6 MB. The number of assembled contigs is closely related to the number of chromosomes. The GC content was 63.5% for both genomes. Comparative analysis showed high similarity in genome size and alignment, with Pw26 having slightly more protein-coding genes (46,394) than PwS1 (44,702). Repeat sequences accounted for 6.03% and 4.18% of the genomes in Pw26 and PwS1, respectively. These high-quality genome assemblies provide a valuable resource for comparative genomics and functional exploration of Prototheca wickerhamii. The detailed genomic characterization supports further studies on pathogenic mechanisms.
Fang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.