Super-giga and tiny orchid genomes illuminate evolution of Orchidaceae

Abstract Orchidaceae (orchids) is commonly known as one of the largest families of seed plants, and grow in an extensive range of habitats worldwide. In the present study, we generated chromosome-level reference genomes for two orchids using a combination of PacBio, Illumina, and Hi-C sequencing, Cypripedium singchii has the largest genome and chromosomes among the sequenced species so far, with a genome size of 43.19 Gb (1C) with ten chromosomes, and Apostasia fujianica has the smallest known genome and chromosomes in Orchidaceae, with a genome size of 340.90 Mb (1C) with 35 chromosomes. We predicted a total of 32,412 and 21,724 protein-coding genes for C. singchii and A. fujianica , respectively. The overall BUSCO score was 85.01% for C. singchii and 91.80% in A. fujianica . Based on protein-coding sequences from 55 conserved single-copy families across 21 plant species, we constructed a high-confidence phylogenetic tree and estimated the divergence times. The high-quality genomes of super-giga and tiny orchids offer key insight for future evolutionary researches.