Near-Gapless Genome Assemblies of the Domestic Cat (Felis silvestris catus) and the African Serval (Leptailurus serval) Derived from Trio-Binning.

The Savannah cat is a popular cat breed derived from an interspecific hybrid cross between the domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus) and the African serval (Leptailurus serval). Within the family Felidae, Savannahs represent the most divergent interspecific hybrid breed, with ~13 million years separating the parental species. Here, we apply trio-binning of an F1 interspecific hybrid to achieve near-gapless chromosome-level genome assemblies for the domestic cat and serval. Using a hybrid assembly approach combining PacBio HiFi and CLR reads, we generated domestic cat and serval genome assemblies, each comprising ~2.5 Gb of sequence with contig N50s of 107.4Mb and 112.3Mb, respectively. We anchored >99% of the contigs into 19 chromosome-length scaffolds for each species, supported by base-quality (QV) metrics exceeding 61. The serval reference genome assembly represents the first for the species, providing an essential resource for future population and comparative genomic studies. The new domestic cat assembly adds an average of 36-Mb of novel sequence to chromosomes missing in earlier long-read assemblies. These sequence gains include the first resolution of multi-megabase FA-SAT macrosatellite arrays with putative functions in cell cycle regulation. These new assemblies add to the growing list of highly complete chromosome-level felid genomes and improve our understanding of complex genome architecture and satellite evolution within mammals.