Pernille Nilsson, Monica H Solbakken, Boris V Schmid, Russell J S Orr, Ruichen Lv, Yujun Cui, Yajun Song, Yujiang Zhang, Helle T Baalsrud, Ole K Tørresen, Nils Chr Stenseth, Ruifu Yang, Kjetill S Jakobsen, William Ryan Easterday, Sissel Jentoft
The great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) is a social rodent living in permanent, complex burrow systems distributed throughout Central Asia, where it serves as the main host of several important vector-borne infectious pathogens including the well-known plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis). Here, we present a continuous annotated genome assembly of the great gerbil, covering over 96% of the estimated 2.47-Gb genome. Taking advantage of the recent genome assemblies of the sand rat (Psammomys obesus) and the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), comparative immunogenomic analyses reveal shared gene losses within TLR gene families (i...
February 1, 2020: Genome Biology and Evolution