Leishmania donovani isolate:laboratory culture Genome sequencing

Leishmania donovani is responsible for visceral leishmaniasis, a neglected and lethal parasitic disease with limited treatments and no vaccine. The study of L. donovani and has been hindered by the lack of a high-quality reference genome. Previous attempts to sequence the 36 chromosomes of the 35 Mb genome of L. donovani have resulted in highly fragmented assemblies of thousands of contigs. We have generated a complete genome assembly by deep sequencing using a combination of second generation (Illumina) and third generation (PacBio) sequencing technologies. We then used this new assembly to perform comparative genomics between cutaneous and visceral disease causing strains of L. donovani.