Corallium rubrum, the precious red coral, is an octocoral endemic to the western Mediterranean Sea. It plays a key role in the well-known Mediterranean coralligenous ecosystem, a biodiversity hotspot. We sequenced its genome for further investigations into its biology (skeleton formation and color, genetic diversity), ecology, and evolutionary history.

The genome sequence of Corallium rubrum assembled at the CSM was aligned using STAR with its transcriptome assembled using trinity. RNA and genomic DNA were extracted from the same organism.