The Oxytricha trifallax macronuclear genome: a complex eukaryotic genome with 16,000 tiny chromosomes

The macronuclear genome of the ciliate Oxytricha trifallax displays an extreme and unique eukaryotic genome architecture with extensive genomic variation. During sexual genome development, the expressed, somatic macronuclear genome is whittled down to the genic portion of a small fraction (~5%) of its precursor “silent” germline micronuclear genome by a process of “unscrambling” and fragmentation. The tiny macronuclear “nanochromosomes” typically encode single, protein-coding genes (a small portion, 10%, encode 2–8 genes), have minimal noncoding regions, and are differentially amplified to an average of ~2,000 copies. We report the high-quality genome assembly of ~16,000 complete nanochromosomes (~50 Mb haploid genome size) that vary from 469 bp to 66 kb long (mean ~3.2 kb) and encode ~18,500 genes. Alternative DNA fragmentation processes ~10% of the nanochromosomes into multiple isoforms that usually encode complete genes. Nucleotide diversity in the macronucleus is very high (SNP hete...