A strategy for complete telomere-to-telomere assembly of ciliate macronuclear genome using ultra-high coverage Nanopore data

Ciliates contain two kinds of nuclei: the germline micronucleus (MIC) and somatic macronucleus (MAC) in a single cell. The MAC usually have fragmented chromosomes. These chromosomes, capped with telomeres at both ends, could be gene size to several megabases length among different ciliate species. So far, no telomere-to-telomere assembly entire genome species has been finished. Development third generation sequencing technologies allows generate reads up that possibly span an chromosome. Taking advantage ultra-long Nanopore reads, we established simple strategy for complete genomes. Using this strategy, assembled genomes Tetrahymena thermophila shanghaiensis, composed 181 214 chromosomes respectively. as well high-quality data will provide useful approach assembly, valuable community resource further biological, evolutionary population genomic studies.