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RESEARCH PRODUCT

De Novo Genome Assembly of the Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes Procyonoides)

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The raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 34880, Figure 1a) belongs to the family Canidae, with foxes (genus Vulpes) being their closest relatives (Lindblad-Toh et al., 2005; Sun et al., 2019). Its original distribution in East Asia ranges from south-eastern Siberia to northern Vietnam and the Japanese islands. In the early 20th century, the raccoon dog was introduced into Western Russia for fur breeding and hunting purposes, which led to its widespread establishment in many European countries, Figure 1b. Together with the raccoon (Procyon lotor), it is now listed in Europe as an invasive species of Union concern (Regulation (EU) No. 1143/2014) and member states are required to control pathways of introductions and manage established populations. Open in a separate window Figure 1 (a) Picture of an adult specimen of raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), copyright © Dorian D. Dorge. (b) Native (orange) and introduced (purple) distributions ranges of raccoon dog (source IUCN red list). (c) Workflow of genome assembly and annotation followed in this study. (d) Blob plot showing read depth of coverage, GC content and size of each scaffold. Size of the blobs correspond to size of the scaffold and color corresponds to taxonomic assignment of BLAST (blue = Carnivora). (e) Whole genome synteny, obtained with Jupiterplot, between the Canis lupus familiaris chromosome-level assembly (on the left) and the raccoon dog genome assembly obtained in this study (on the right). The lines indicate aligned regions between the two assemblies.