Nebenfuehr, M.; Prochotta, D.; Nilsson, M. A.; de Jong, M. J.; Yasici, T. D.; Langefeld, F.; Wokoeck, H.; Jilg, J.; Bender, S. C.; Zangl, M. M.; Williams, K.; Janke, A.; Sonnewald, M.; Muloongo, M.; Ortega Guatame, J. M.

Background: The lemon sole (Microstomus kitt) is a culinary fish from the family of righteye flounders (Pleuronectidae) inhabiting sandy and shallow offshore grounds of the North Sea, the western Baltic Sea, the English Channel, the shallow waters of Great Britain and Ireland as well as the Bay of Biscay and the coastal waters of Norway. Findings: Here, we present the chromosome-level genome assembly of the lemon sole. We applied PacBio HiFi sequencing on the PacBio Revio system to generate a highly complete and contiguous reference genome. The resulting assembly has a contig N50 of 17.2 Mbp and a scaffold N50 of 27.2 Mbp. The total assembly length is 628 Mbp, of which 616 Mbp were scaffolded into 24 chromosome-length scaffolds. The identification of 99.7% complete BUSCO genes indicates a high assembly completeness. Conclusions: The chromosome-level genome assembly of the lemon sole provides a high-quality reference genome for future population genomic analyses of a commercially valuable edible fish.