Sitobion avenae (Fabricius), a major pest of cereal crops worldwide, causes significant damage on agricultural production. However, the lack of high-quality genomes has limited in-depth studies on its biology and effective management strategies. Here, we report a chromosome-level genome assembly of S. avenae, generated by combining PacBio long-read sequencing, Illumina short-read sequencing, and Hi-C scaffolding. The assembled genome has a size of 421 Mb, with 99.97% of sequences anchored to nine pseudochromosomes. It comprises only 11 scaffolds, exhibits the scaffold N50 and contig N50 of 39.84 Mb and 28.00 MB, and achieves a BUSCO completeness of 97.30%. Repetitive elements account for 37.40% (157.66 Mb) of the assembly. We annotated 15,369 protein-coding genes and 1,188 non-coding RNAs. This high-quality genome of S. avenae serves as a valuable genomic resource for advancing research on pest management and host adaptation mechanisms in this aphid species.
Wang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.