A near telomere-to-telomere phased reference assembly for the male mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) -Oxford Nanopore reads

The critically endangered mountain gorilla Gorilla beringei beringei faces numerous threats to its survival, highlighting the urgent need for genomic resources to aid conservation efforts. Here, we present a near telomere-to-telomere, haplotype-phased reference genome assembly for a male mountain gorilla generated using Pacbio HiFi and Oxford Nanopore Ultralong data. The resulting assembly exhibits exceptional contiguity, with contig N50 of ~ 95 Mbps for the combined pseudohaplotype (3,540,458,497 bps, and 56.5 Mbps (3.1 Gbps) and 51.0 Mbps (3.2 Gbps) for the maternal and paternal haplotypes and an average QV of 65.15 (error rate = 3.1 x 10-7) and 0% switch errors detected. These represent substantial improvements over most other available primate genomes. This high-quality reference genome provides an invaluable resource for future studies on gorilla evolution, adaptation, and conservation, ultimately contributing to the long-term survival of this iconic species. This repository hosts the Oxford Nanopore ultralong reads. The preprint for this work is available at bioRXiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.28.620258.