A chromosome-level genome assembly of Dracaena cambodiana and comparative genomics analysis highlights the distinct biological features of two resource species of dragon's blood

This study reports a chromosome-level genome for Dracaena cambodiana, one of two typical dracaena species in China. This work will help to deepen the understanding of the dracaena species and the conservation and development of plant resources. The final assembly consisted of 54 scaffolds, spanning 1.08 Gb, with a scaffold N50 size of 52.29 Mb, encoded 36860 predicted protein-coding genes. A total of 1,064,810,157 bp of genome sequences were located on 20 chromosomes (2n = 40), accounting for 98.46%. We investigate the possible mechanisms of the longevity of dracaena, the longest-lived plant in the world, which involve DNA repair and post-translational modification. We also performed comparative genomic analysis of the previously assembled genome of Dracaena cochinchinesis with this genome, and found that the two involved interaction of plant-pathogen interaction and ubiquitin mediated proteolysis, which may reveal why Dracaena has environmental adaptability and longevity characteristics.