ERGA-BGE reference genome of Xylophaga dorsalis - a common deep-sea wood-boring bivalve with Atlantic-Mediterranean distribution.

Xylophaga dorsalis is a common Atlantic-Mediterranean mollusc that plays a crucial role in deep-sea habitats, where it digests wood that reaches the seabed through a unique symbiosis with specialised bacteria. The reference genome of X. dorsalis thus offers a crucial resource for uncovering the genetic basis of the species adaptability to wood bore in deep-water ecosystems. The entirety of the genome sequence was assembled into 18 contiguous chromosomal pseudomolecules (superscaffolds) and 1 mitochondrial genome. This chromosome-level assembly encompasses 0.451 Gb, composed of 1,259 contigs and 320 scaffolds, with contig and scaffold N50 values of 1.30 Mb and 25.4 Mb, respectively. The genome assembly encodes 19,441 protein-coding genes (34,405 transcripts) and 6,716 non-coding genes.