The First Complete T2T Assemblies of Cattle and Sheep Y-Chromosomes Uncover Remarkable Divergence in Structure and Gene Content

Overview

Journal Res Sq

Date 2024 May 7

PMID 38712074

Authors

Timothy Smith

Temitayo Olagunju

Benjamin Rosen

Holly Neibergs

Gabrielle Becker

Kimberly Davenport

Christine Elsik

Tracy Hadfield

Sergey Koren

Kristen Kuhn

Arang Rhie

Katie Shira

Amy Skibiel

Morgan Stegemiller

Jacob Thorne

Patricia Villamediana

Noelle Cockett

Brenda Murdoch

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Reference genomes of cattle and sheep have lacked contiguous assemblies of the sex-determining Y chromosome. We assembled complete and gapless telomere to telomere (T2T) Y chromosomes for these species. The pseudo-autosomal regions were similar in length, but the total chromosome size was substantially different, with the cattle Y more than twice the length of the sheep Y. The length disparity was accounted for by expanded ampliconic region in cattle. The genic amplification in cattle contrasts with pseudogenization in sheep suggesting opposite evolutionary mechanisms since their divergence 18MYA. The centromeres also differed dramatically despite the close relationship between these species at the overall genome sequence level. These Y chromosome have been added to the current reference assemblies in GenBank opening new opportunities for the study of evolution and variation while supporting efforts to improve sustainability in these important livestock species that generally use sire-driven genetic improvement strategies.

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