Abstract
The genus Meretrix contains marine bivalve molluscs commonly known as the Venus clams or hard clams, which can be found in the estuarine and marine habitats in Asia. Given their edibility, they have been exploited in clam digging activities and also been farmed in some places. Here, we provide two new high-quality genomes of species M. meretrix and M. lamarckii. Utilising a combination of PacBio HiFi and Omni-C sequencing technologies, genome assemblies of M. meretrix and M. lamarcki are obtained with sizes 835.1 Mb (scaffold N50 = 46 Mb) and 890.5 Mb (scaffold N50 = 46 Mb), respectively. More than 99% of sequences were anchored to 19 pseudochromosomes, and high completeness was also obtained estimated by BUSCO scores (~99.5%, mollusca_odb12). The two new genomic resources provided in this study will be useful for further understanding biology, ecology, and evolution of edible clams.
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Data availability
The genome assemblies of M. meretrix and M. lamarcki are available at NCBI/ENA GenBank under accessions JBTXPG000000000 and JBTORC000000000, DDBJ accessions PRJDB40269 and PRJDB40270, NGDC accessions GWHHOJO00000000 and GWHHOOY00000000, and CUHK Research Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.48668/DOVLYS), respectively. The raw sequencing data of M. meretrix and M. lamarcki are deposited in the NCBI/ENA database under the SRA accession numbers SRP617717 and SRP618173, DDBJ database under the DRA accession numbers DRR911404-DRR911405 and DRR911157-DRR911158, NGDC database under the GSA accession numbers CRA039134 and CRA039136, and CUHK Research Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.48668/DOVLYS), respectively. The genome annotation files of M. meretrix and M. lamarckii can be found at CUHK Research Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.48668/DOVLYS).
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No specific script was used in this work.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Lantau Conservation Fund (RE-2020-39), Hong Kong Research Grant Council Collaborative Research Fund (C4015-20EF), Innovation Technology Fund of Innovation Technology Commission: Funding Support to State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, and Direct Grant of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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S.Y.L., S.G.C. and J.H.L.H. conceived and supervised the study; S.T.S.L., M.F.F.A., L.H.T.C. and C.W.Y.S. carried out sample collection; S.T.S.L. and W.N. performed data curation on the analysis; J.H.L.H. and S.T.S.L. wrote the initial manuscript; all authors revised and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.
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Law, S.T.S., Nong, W., Au, M.F.F. et al. Chromosome-level genomes of hard clams Meretrix lamarckii (Deshayes, 1853) and Meretrix meretrix (Linnaeus, 1758). Sci Data (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07119-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07119-0
