A chromosome scale reference genome of an arid adapted ungulate, Gazella subgutturosa

Abstract

The goitered gazelle, Gazella subgutturosa, is a conservation priority globally, one of the important ungulates in the arid and semiarid ecosystem. We produced Illumina short reads, PacBio HiFi long reads and Hi-C sequencing data of a road-killed male individual of this species to assemble whole genome at the chromosome level. Consequently, the assembly is a 3.13 Gb in size, consisting of 16 pseudochromosomes (14 autosomes + X chromosome + partial Y chromosome), with a scaffold N50 length of 186.56Mb. The quality value and Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Ortholog score were 47.6 and 99.3%, respectively, indicating that our genomes sequence is of high quality and completeness. A total of 20,896 protein-coding genes were predicted in the genome, with an average gene length of 38,012 bp and an average coding sequence length of 1,291 bp. Comparison with other Bovidae genome revealed that each of the pseudochromosome of G. subgutturosa corresponds to two chromosomes of Bovidae species, suggesting multiple whole chromosome fusions. Notably, the X chromosome corresponds to a fusion of the Bos taurus X chromosome and BTA5, consistent with a known X-autosomal translocation in the tribe Antilopini. However, the underlying molecular mechanism of this chromosome fusion has yet to be elucidated in future studies. In summary, the whole genome generated provides a high-quality reference for conservation genomics and genome evolution studies of Gazella species, especially of G. subgutturosa.