Draft genome of European bison (wisent), Bison bonasus

The wisent, also known as European bison, was rescued approximately 80 years ago from 12 founding individuals. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of a male wisent individual descended from this founding stock.
A total of 366 billion base pairs (Gb) of raw reads from whole-genome sequencing of this wisent were generated using the Illumina HiSeq2000 platform. The final genome assembly (2.58 Gb), is composed of 29,074 scaffolds with an N50 of 4.7 Mb. 47.3% of
the genome is composed of repetitive elements. We identified 21,542 genes and
58,385 non-coding RNAs. A phylogenetic tree based on nuclear genomes indicated
sister relationships between bison and wisent and between the wisent-bison clade and
yak. For 75 genes we obtained evidence of positive evolution in the wisent lineage.
We provide the first genome sequence and gene annotation for the wisent. The availability of these resources will be of value for the future conservation of this endangered large mammal and for reconstructing the evolutionary history of the Bovini
tribe.