Abstract
Moringa oleifera is a famous tree species often known as horseradish
tree or drumstick tree, belongs to the family Moringaceae. It is an
evergreen and mineral rich plant that grows quickly, used in herbal
medicine, agriculture, and the livestock sector. So far, only one draft
genome assembly is available publicly for M. oleifera. Sparse
availability of the genomic resources limits its use in genetic and
genomic studies. So, we sequenced and de-novo assembled a draft genome
of M. oleifera from Pakistan. The sequencing was performed using
Illumina HiSeq platform with paired-end libraries. The draft assembled
genome was 205,248,313 bp in size, and comprised of 13,872 scaffolds
with N50 value of 17,279 bp. Annotation of the assembled genome revealed
26,215 protein coding genes. The draft de novo assembled genome is close
to the genome size predicted by k-mers distribution and covers 83.09%
and 84.68% of completeness and plant orthologous groups in BUSCO and
CEGMA, respectively. This genome assembly would be an invaluable
resource in understanding the genetic potential of this species, as well
as in functional, comparative and evolutionary genomics within this
species and in Moringa genus.