The spider Trichonephila antipodiana (Araneidae), commonly known as the batik golden web spider, preys on arthropods with body sizes ranging from approximately 2 mm in length to insects larger than itself (over 20 ‒ 50 mm), indicating its polyphagy and strong dietary detoxification abilities. Although it has been reported that an ancient whole-genome duplication event occurred in spiders, lack of a high-quality genome has limited characterization of this event. We present a chromosome‐level T. antipodiana genome constructed based on PacBio and Hi-C sequencing. The assembled genome is 2.29 Gb in size with a scaffold N50 of 172.89 Mb. Hi‐C scaffolding assigned 98.5% of the bases to 13 pseudo-chromosomes, and BUSCO completeness analysis revealed that the assembly included 94.8% of the complete arthropod universal single-copy orthologs (n=1,066). Repetitive elements account for 59.21% of the genome. We predicted 19,001 protein-coding genes, of which 96.78% were supported by transcriptome-based evidence and 96.32% matched protein records in the UniProt database. The genome also shows substantial expansions in several detoxification-associated gene families, including cytochrome P450 monooxygenases, carboxyl/cholinesterases, glutathione-S-transferases, and ATP-binding cassette transporters, reflecting the possible genomic basis of polyphagy. Further analysis of the T. antipodiana genome architecture reveals an ancient whole-genome duplication event, based on two lines of evidence: (1) large-scale duplications from inter-chromosome synteny analysis; (2) duplicated clusters of Hox genes. The high-quality T. antipodiana genome represents a valuable resource for spider research and provides insights into this species' adaptation to the environment.

Keywords:

• high-quality genome
• whole-genome duplication
• gene family analysis
• cytochrome p450
• abc
• cce
• gst
• hox
• hi-c

Read the peer-reviewed publication(s):

(PubMed: 33739402)

Accessions (data generated as part of this study):

BioProject: PRJNA627506