Near telomere-to-telomere genome assembly of the fourfinger threadfin (Eleutheronema tetradactylum)

The fourfinger threadfin (Eleutheronema tetradactylum) is a euryhaline fish distributed across the Indo-West Pacific, from the Persian Gulf to Australia. However, the lack of high-quality genomic resources has limited genomic-level studies of its evolution, conservation, and aquaculture. Here, we present the first Near telomere-to-telomere (T2T) genome assembly of E. tetradactylum, generated using Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) High-Fidelity (HiFi) sequencing, Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) ultra-long reads, and Hi-C chromatin conformation capture. The final assembly spans 585.38 Mb across 83 contigs, with a contig N50 of 22.14 Mb and 98.76% of sequences anchored to 26 chromosomes. We annotated 22,362 protein-coding genes and identified that repetitive sequences constitute 18.09% of the genome. This high-quality T2T assembly demonstrates significant improvements in contiguity and completeness over previously available genomes, providing an invaluable resource to accelerate genetic research, advance molecular breeding, and inform conservation strategies for E. tetradactylum.