BACKGROUND:

Gayal (Bos frontalis), also known as mithan or mithun, is a large endangered semi-domesticated bovine that has a limited geographical distribution in the hill-forests of China, Northeast India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Bhutan. Many questions about the gayal such as its origin, population history as well as genetic basis of local adaptation remain largely unresolved. De novo sequencing and assembly of the whole gayal genome provides an opportunity to address these issues.

FINDINGS:

We report a high-depth sequencing, de novo assembly, and annotation of a female Chinese gayal genome. Based on the Illumina genomic sequencing platform, we have generated 350.38Gb raw data from 16 different insert-size libraries. A total of 276.86Gb clean data is retained after quality control. The assembled genome is about 2.85Gb with scaffold and contig N50 sizes of 2.74Mb and 14.41kb, respectively. Repetitive elements account for 48.13% of the genome. Gene annotation has yielded 26,667 protein-coding genes, of which 97.18% have been functionally annotated. BUSCO assessment shows that our assembly captures 93% (3,183 of 4,104) of the core eukaryotic genes, and 83.1% of vertebrate universal single-copy orthologs.

CONCLUSIONS:

We provide the first comprehensive de novo genome of the gayal. This genetic resource is integral for investigating the origin of the gayal and performing comparative genomic studies to improve understanding of the speciation and divergence of Bovine species. The assembled genome could be used as reference in future population genetic studies of gayal.