This is the first release of the low-coverage 2X assembly of the
domestic cat (Felis catus). The genome sequencing was
performed by Agencourt Bioscience
and assembly provided by the Broad Institute.
The N50 size is the length such that 50% of the assembled genome lies in blocks of the N50 size or longer. The N50 length for supercontigs is 45.22 kb and is 2.38 kb for contigs. The total number of bases in supercontigs is 3.94 Gb and in contigs is 1.64 Gb.
Owing to the fragmentary nature of this preliminary assembly, it was necessary to arrange some scaffolds into "gene-scaffold" super-structures, in order to present complete genes. There are 4453 such gene-scaffolds, with identifiers of the form "GeneScaffold_1". It should be noted that for this projection genebuild a combination of human and dog genes were used, where dog genes were used to fill gaps where no human gene had been projected onto the cat sequence.
Felis catus is one of 16 mammals that will be sequenced as part of the Mammalian Genome Project, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A group of species were chosen to maximise the branch length of the evolutionary tree while representing the diversity of mammalian species. Low-coverage 2X assemblies will be produced for these mammals and used in alignments for cross-species comparison. The aim is to increase our understanding of functional elements, especially in the human genome.