Strobilanthes Cusia Genome Database

Baphicacanthus cusia (Nees) Bremek, (2n=2x=32,Acanthaceae), is an important medicinal plant, widely distributed in the Southwest regions of China, and other countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia. The stem and leaf can produce the natural secondary metabolite: indigo and Indirubin, which could be used as medicine (called " Nan ban lan gen ") and blue dye for textile dyeing. However, the molecular basis underlying the indigo biosynthesis in Strobilanthes cusia is largely unknown, mainly due to the lack of genome information and transcriptome data.

Here, we employed the long-reads sequencing by Nanopore technique and Hi-C sequencing, resulting in a Chromosome-scale genome assembly. It estimated an 826.37 Mb genome size with 32,148 protein-coding genes. Several key genes in indigo biosynthesis pathway were identified by transcriptome and metabolism analysis. The genome sequences and annotation are freely accessible to researchers interesting in indigo.

We believe that these data will provide a valuable resource and also an important platform for the fundamental and applied research on the distinctive indigo plant Strobilanthes cusia and other related plants.

This work was jointly supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant NO. XDA20050204) and the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) program (2019QZKK0502)