Abstract
Prototheca wickerhamii is a non-photosynthetic microalgal species that has been implicated in opportunistic human infections. Understanding its genomic features is crucial for both medical applications and symbiosis research. We generated high-quality genome assemblies for two strains of Prototheca wickerhamii, Pw26 and PwS1, using PacBio HiFi reads. The assemblies were evaluated for completeness and accuracy using BUSCO analysis. The assembled genomes for Pw26 and PwS1 were 17.8 MB and 17.4 MB, respectively, with contig N50 values of 1.6 MB. The number of assembled contigs is closely related to the number of chromosomes. The GC content was 63.5% for both genomes. Comparative analysis showed high similarity in genome size and alignment, with Pw26 having slightly more protein-coding genes (46,394) than PwS1 (44,702). Repeat sequences accounted for 6.03% and 4.18% of the genomes in Pw26 and PwS1, respectively. These high-quality genome assemblies provide a valuable resource for comparative genomics and functional exploration of Prototheca wickerhamii. The detailed genomic characterization supports further studies on pathogenic mechanisms.
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Data availability
All data related to the genome of P. wickerhamii strain PwS1 and Pw26 are available through the following databases or links. Sequence Read Archive (SRA) data was uploaded in NCBI with project ID of PRJNA1314384. The HiFi long reads sequencing data for P. wickerhamii Pw26 and PwS1 have been deposited in the SRA, with accession numbers SRR35231276 and SRR35231275, respectively. The whole-genome shotgun projects for strains Pw26 and PwS1 have been deposited in GenBank under accessions JBTKVZ00000000032 and JBTKVY00000000033, correspondingly. Additionally, SRA data link is https://identifiers.org/ncbi/insdc.sra:SRP616729. The Figshare link: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30030796.v1.
Code availability
This study did not involve the development of any specific code. The data analyses were conducted in accordance with the protocols outlined in the Methods section.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the STU Scientific Research Initiation Grant (NTF25030T), Sanming Project of Shenzhen Longhua Distrcit Central Hospital and Municipal Financial Subsidy of Shenzhen Longhua District Key Medical Discipline Construction.
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J. Jian conceived the study. J. Guo collected the samples, conducted experiments, L. Fang, J. Jian and Y. Luo performed bioinformatics analysis. L. Fang, Q. Ning, J. Jian wrote the manuscript. J. Guo and J. Ning provided suggestion and revised the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Fang, L., Guo, J., Ning, Q. et al. High-Quality Genome Assemblies of Two Prototheca wickerhamii Strains. Sci Data (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06916-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06916-x
