Capitella teleta (Bristle worm) Assembly and Gene Annotation

About Capitella teleta

Capitella teleta is a polychaete annelid worm, a class whose members are also known as bristle worms, due to the chitinous bristles on the parapodia of each body segment. C. teleta is an opportunistic inhabitant of marine benthic regions, with a worldwide distribution; the species was only recently given a formal taxonomic name, having previously been referred to as Capitella sp. I [1].

C. teleta has many characteristics that are representative of annelids and, more generally, lophotrochozoans, and its genome was sequenced alongside another annelid (Helobdella robusta) and a mollusc (Lottia gigantea) to provide insight into metazoan evolution [2]. The genomic data also promotes the use of this species as a model organism for studies of evolutionary development.

Picture credit: Aldine Amiel (Kahi Kai)

Assembly

The Capitella teleta genome (v1.0, August 2007) was sequenced to 7.9x coverage, and assembled with the JGI software, Jazz. After quality control, the paired-end reads assembled into 20,803 scaffolds, giving a genome size of approximately 333 Mb.

Annotation

The protein-coding genes displayed in Ensembl Genomes are imported from JGI. Non-coding RNA genes were added using the Ensembl Genomes pipeline, and BLAST hits and protein features have been computed. The IDs of genes, transcripts and translations must be unique across species in Ensembl Genomes (to allow cross-species comparisons), which means that the JGI IDs cannot be used without slight modifications. The JGI transcript and protein IDs have been given the prefixes 'CapteT' and 'CapteP', respectively. Genes have been renamed to have the format 'CapteG*xxx*', where xxx is the original JGI transcript ID; the original JGI gene ID is stored as a cross-reference. Searching on the original JGI IDs will return the expected result (and potentially results from other species).

References

1. Capitella teleta, a new species designation for the opportunistic and experimental Capitella sp. I, with a review of the literature for confirmed records.
   Blake JA, Grassle JP, Eckelbarger KJ. 2009. Zoosymposia. 2:2553.
2. Insights into bilaterian evolution from three spiralian genomes.
   Simakov O, Marletaz F, Cho SJ, Edsinger-Gonzales E, Havlak P, Hellsten U, Kuo DH, Larsson T, Lv J, Arendt D et al. 2013. Nature. 493:526-531.

More information

General information about this species can be found in Wikipedia.