Pantholops hodgsonii isolate:TAntelope-BX-2024 Genome sequencing

Tibetan sheep is the wild ruminant endemic to Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) in China which is developed series of genetic and physiological adaptation strategies thriving in the plateau harsh environments. However, limited researches on the genome of this species are available. Here, we established a high-quality chromosome-level reference genome assembly of Tibetan antelope using PacBio HiFi, DNBSEQ and Hi-C sequencing data. The assembly (3.13 GB) contains 31 chromosomes (29 + X + Y) with Scaffold N50 length of 92.23 Mb. The quality value (QV) and benchmarking universal single-copy ortholog (BUSCO) score were 69.25 and 99.30% which indicated that our genome sequences is a high-quality and high-completeness genome assembly. Notably, phylogenetic and comparative genome analysis indicated that the Tibetan sheep were first divergent from the ancestor Carpinae species about 11.17 Mya ago, and the chromosome of Carpinae species (Tibetan antelope-takin-goat-argali/sheep) undergoing "fusion-disruption-fusion" rearrangement evolution pattern through their evolution and speciation. Besides, gene family analysis of revealed that a great number of gene families are experiencing expansions and predominate in for example, "hypoxia response", "DNA repairing", and "Thermogenesis" by KEGG enrichments analysis. Therefore, our genome not only shed more lights on the genetic adaptation of Tibetan antelope to the plateau harsh environments but also offer a valuable resource for the genetic, ecology and evolutionary research of the sub-family Caprinae, as well as the improvement of plateau livestock.