The sable antelope (Hippotragus niger), native to the savannah woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa, is a species that is being actively managed in ranches and zoos all over the United States. To help characterize the genetic status of the managed population as compared to the wild, our colleagues from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Klaus-Peter Koepfli and Budhan Pukazhhenthhi with coauthors have recently created a draft genome assembly for the sable antelope, now available through G3: Early Online web page.
Today we share a chromosome-length assembly based on this draft, with a sample for the Hi-C library preparation provided to us by SeaWorld.
Check out below how the 30 chromosomes of the new assembly relate to the 30 chromosomes of the cow Bos taurus (genome assembly Bos_taurus_UMD_3.1.1, from Zimin et al., Genome Biology, 2009). The results suggest extensive homology!
