De novo genome assembly of Ansell's mole-rat (Fukomys anselli)

Abstract

Ansells mole-rat (Fukomys anselli) is an African rodent known for its subterranean lifestyle and unique phenotypic traits, including extreme longevity, magnetoreception, and a cooperative breeding social structure. Efforts to dissect the genetic architecture of these traits and to decipher their phylogenetic relationships within the broader African mole-rat family would greatly benefit from a reference-grade genome. Here, we report a first genome assembly of a male Ansells mole-rat. By combining Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long-reads and Illumina short-reads with Hi-C data, we generated a chromosome level assembly with a total length of 2.27 Gb, 412 scaffolds and a scaffold N50 of 72.4 Mb. We identified 99.54% of expected genes and annotated 29,094 transcripts using RNA sequencing data. This high-quality de novo genome of Fukomys anselli lays the foundation for dissecting the genetic and evolutionary basis of its extraordinary traits and resolving African mole-rat phylogeny. ARTICLE SUMMARYBekavac, Coimbra, and Busa et al. assemble a de novo genome of a male Fukomys anselli individual. They use short-read and long-read whole genome sequencing and Hi-C sequencing to achieve chromosome-level contiguity, and annotate the genome using RNA-seq from nine diverse tissues. This high-quality genome enables exploration of the genetic basis of Ansells mole-rats remarkable traits, including longevity, hypoxia tolerance, and magnetoreception. It also allows for comprehensive analysis of the currently-contested phylogenetic relationships within the mole-rat family.