High-quality genome assembly, annotation and evolutionary analysis of the mungbean (Vigna radiata) genome

Mungbean (Vigna radiata [L.]) is an important economic crop grown in South, and East Asia. The low contiguity of the current assembly of V. radiata genome has limited its application. Here, we report a high-quality chromosome-scale assembled genome of V. radiata to facilitate the investigation of its genome characteristics and evolution. By combination of Nanopore long reads, Illumina short reads and Hi-C data, we generated a high-quality genome assembly of V. radiata, with 473.67 megabases assembled into 11 chromosomes with contig N50 and scaffold N50 of 11.3 and 42.4 megabases, respectively. A total of 52.8% of the genome was annotated as repetitive sequences, among which LTRs (long terminal repeats) were predominant (33.9%). The genome of V. radiata was predicted to contain 33,924 genes, 32,470 (95.7%) of which could be functionally annotated. Evolutionary analysis revealed an estimated divergence time of V. radiata from its close relative V. angularis of ~11.66 million years ago. In addition, 277 V. radiata specific gene families, 18 positively selected genes were detected and functionally annotated. This high-quality mungbean genome will provide valuable resources for further genetic analysis and crop improvement of mungbean and other legume species.