Metagenomic sequencing of a Bison priscus bone sample from the Trois-Freres cave (Ariege, France)

The steppe bison (Bison priscus) is an extinct species that was widely distributed in Europe, Central Asia, Beringia and North America during the Pleistocene. It is known from abundant remains, including complete animals found in the permafrost, and from Palaeolithic rock-art pictures. However, the molecular information available for this species is limited to a fragment of the mitochondrial genome control region. In order to obtain a thorough genetic characterization of the steppe bison, we performed high-throughput shotgun sequencing of DNA extracted from a specimen of the Trois-Freres cave (Ariege, France). Analysis of several bone samples from the Salle du Grand Eboulis of this cave enabled identifying a rib from which bison DNA could be reproductively recovered and amplified by PCR. One DNA extract obtained from this rib was converted into an Illumina library, and about 1 billion DNA reads were analysed. Using these sequence data we reconstructed a complete mitochondrial genome of 16,318 bp with an average unique read depth of 10x