Draft genome for Aedes triseriatus, the vector of La Crosse virus

Monday, November 14, 2022

8:24 AM – 8:36 AM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 204

Presenting Author(s)

Sergiu Cociuba

Undergraduate Researcher
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Co-Author(s)

Andrea Gloria-Soria

Assistant Agricultural Scientist 2
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
New Haven, Connecticut
GM

Gen Morinaga

Postdoctoral Associate
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
John S. Soghigian

Assistant Professor
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La Crosse encephalitis is caused by La Crosse virus (LCV) that is transmitted by mosquitoes. It is the leading cause of vector-borne pediatric encephalitis in North America. The mosquito Aedes triseriatus is the main vector of LCV but a close relative, Ae. hendersoni is unable to transmit LCV. Previous research has shown that physiological differences prevent transmission by Ae. hendersoni, and those differences have a genetic basis. Despite the knowledge of a genetic basis, the lack of genomic resources for either species has prohibited further interrogation of the particular genomic features or genes associated with barriers to LCV transmission. To address this lack of genomic resources, we sequenced and assembled the genome of Ae. triseriatus from a single adult female using circular consensus high-fidelity (HiFi) sequence data generated on the PacBio Sequel IIe. We compared three different bioinformatic programs which assemble Hifi reads: HifiASM, IPA, and NextDenovo, and assessed the performance of each using measures of genome completeness and contiguity, such as BUSCO scores and N50 statistics. We compare our assemblies to other Aedes reference genomes, and find that our HiFi assemblies are of comparable quality to existing reference genomes. We discuss our results in context of future Aedes genome projects.