What is in a lichen? A metagenomic approach to reconstruct the holo-genome of Umbilicaria pustulata

AbstractLichens are valuable models in symbiosis research and promising sources of biosynthetic genes for biotechnological applications. Most lichenized fungi grow slowly, resist aposymbiotic cultivation, and are generally poor candidates for experimentation. Obtaining contiguous, high quality genomes for such symbiotic communities is technically challenging. Here we present the first assembly of a lichen holo-genome from metagenomic whole genome shotgun data comprising both PacBio long reads and Illumina short reads. The nuclear genomes of the two primary components of the lichen symbiosis – the fungus Umbilicaria pustulata (33 Mbp) and the green alga Trebouxia sp. (53 Mbp) – were assemble…