The draft genome of Piper longum L.

Abstract

Genome of Piper longum (long pepper, Piperaceae), an important medicinal plant, is being reported. The sequencing was carried out on Illumina Novaseq‐6000 platform at 150x coverage, and de novo scaffold‐level assembly has resulted in a 447.7 Mb genome (89,204 scaffolds with an N50 value of 10.7 kb). Even though long pepper is valued for its pungent alkaloids, especially piperine, mechanism of piperine biosynthesis is yet to be revealed. Functional annotation of the genes has given a better understanding of the genomic features and genes involved in piperine biosynthesis. Phylogenetic relationship of long pepper with other members of Piperaceae family and the expression of Piperine synthase and Piperamide synthase genes in the developing leaves and spikes were also analyzed. The results indicated that this medicinal plant may have genes similar to black pepper involved in the biosynthesis of piperine. Raw reads and the assembly are made publicly available.