Telomere-to-telomere genome assembly of the goose Anser cygnoides
Hongchang Zhao, Hao Zhou, Guobo Sun, Biao Dong, Wenqi Zhu, Xiaohui Mu, Xiaoming Li, Jun Wang, Mengli Zhao, Wenhao Yang, Gansheng Zhang, Rongchao Ji, Tuoyu Geng, Daoqing Gong, He Meng, Jian Wang, Jian Wang, Jian Wang
Abstract
Our study presents the assembly of a high-quality Taihu goose genome at the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) level. By employing advanced sequencing technologies, including Pacific Biosciences HiFi reads, Oxford Nanopore long reads, Illumina short reads, and chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C), we achieved an exceptional assembly. The T2T assembly encompasses a total length of 1,197,991,206 bp, with contigs N50 reaching 33,928,929 bp and scaffold N50 attaining 81,007,908 bp. It consists of 73 scaffolds, including 38 autosomes and one pair of Z/W sex chromosomes. Importantly, 33 autosomes were assembled without any gap, resulting in a contiguous representation. Furthermore, gene annotation efforts identified 34,898 genes, including 436,162 RNA transcripts, encompassing 806,158 exons, 743,910 introns, 651,148 coding sequences (CDS), and 135,622 untranslated regions (UTR). The T2T-level chromosome-scale goose genome assembly provides a vital foundation for future genetic improvement and understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying important traits in geese.