PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Damian Kao AU - Alvina G. Lai AU - Evangelia Stamataki AU - Silvana Rosic AU - Nikolaos Konstantinides AU - Erin Jarvis AU - Alessia Di Donfrancesco AU - Natalia Pouchkina-Stantcheva AU - Marie Sémon AU - Marco Grillo AU - Heather Bruce AU - Suyash Kumar AU - Igor Siwanowicz AU - Andy Le AU - Andrew Lemire AU - Michael B. Eisen AU - Cassandra Extavour AU - William E. Browne AU - Carsten Wolff AU - Michalis Averof AU - Nipam H. Patel AU - Peter Sarkies AU - Anastasios Pavlopoulos AU - A. Aziz Aboobaker TI - The genome of the crustacean <em>Parhyale hawaiensis</em>: a model for animal development, regeneration, immunity and lignocellulose digestion AID - 10.1101/065789 DP - 2016 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 065789 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/13/065789.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/13/065789.full AB - The amphipod crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis is a blossoming model system for studies of developmental mechanisms and more recently regeneration. We have sequenced the genome allowing annotation of all key signaling pathways, transcription factors, and non-coding RNAs that will enhance ongoing functional studies. Parhyale is a member of the Malacostraca clade, which includes crustacean food crop species. We analysed the immunity related genes of Parhyale as an important comparative system for these species, where immunity related aquaculture problems have increased as farming has intensified. We also find that Parhyale and other species within Multicrustacea contain the enzyme sets necessary to perform lignocellulose digestion (“wood eating”), suggesting this ability may predate the diversification of this lineage. Our data provide an essential resource for further development of Parhyale as an experimental model. The first malacostracan genome will underpin ongoing comparative work in food crop species and research investigating lignocellulose as an energy source.