A chromosome-level genome assembly of the snow leopard, Panthera uncia

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia), a vulnerable big cat native to Central
Asia, faces an ongoing population decline due to habitat loss and human
activities. Despite its conservation importance, genomic resources for
this species remain limited. High-quality reference genomes are essential
for assessing genetic diversity, structural variation, and evolutionary
history. To address this gap, we have generated a long-read-based and
proximity-ligation scaffolded de novo genome assembly of a male snow
leopard. The final assembly has a total length of 2.46 Gb in 280
scaffolds, of which the 19 largest correspond to the 18 autosomes and the
X chromosome. The scaffold N50 is 145.76 Mb, and the L50 is seven
scaffolds. BUSCO and compleasm scores are 98.7 % and 98.9 % of identified
Carnivora orthologs. Telomeric sequences were identified on at least one
end of 18 out of 19 chromosomes. Scaffolds corresponding to the Y
chromosome were identified and mapped. Additionally, the assembly's
annotation identified a repeat content of 42.27 % and 25,391 genes. We
produced a high-quality, long-read-based chromosome-level assembly of a
male snow leopard, as evidenced by the data above. As a first assembly of
a male genome, it can serve as a suitable reference genome for the
species. The Y chromosome scaffolds provide a glimpse into the chromosome
organization and interspecies differences.