Draft de novo genome assembly of the elusive jaguarundi, Puma yagouaroundi

The Puma lineage within the family Felidae consists of three species that
last shared a common ancestor around 4.9 million years ago. Whole-genome
sequences of two species from the lineage were previously reported: the
cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and the mountain lion (Puma concolor). The
present report describes a whole-genome assembly of the remaining species,
the jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi). We sequenced the genome of a male
jaguarundi with 10X Genomics linked reads and assembled the whole-genome
sequence. The assembled genome contains a series of scaffolds that reach
the length of chromosome arms and is similar in scaffold contiguity to the
genome assemblies of cheetah and puma, with a contig N50 = 100.2 kbp and a
scaffold N50 = 49.27 Mbp. We assessed the assembled sequence of the
jaguarundi genome using BUSCO, aligned reads of the sequenced individual
and another published female jaguarundi to the assembled genome, annotated
protein-coding genes, repeats, genomic variants and their effects with
respect to the protein-coding genes, and analyzed differences of the two
jaguarundis from the reference mitochondrial genome. The jaguarundi genome
assembly and its annotation were compared in quality, variants and
features to the previously reported genome assemblies of puma and cheetah.
Computational analyzes used in the study were implemented in transparent
and reproducible way to allow their further reuse and modification.