PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ellie E. Armstrong
AU  - Michael G. Campana
AU  - Katherine A. Solari
AU  - Simon R. Morgan
AU  - Oliver A. Ryder
AU  - Vincent N. Naude
AU  - Gustaf Samelius
AU  - Koustubh Sharma
AU  - Elizabeth A. Hadly
AU  - Dmitri A. Petrov
TI  - Genome Report: Chromosome-level draft assemblies of the snow leopard, African leopard, and tiger (<em>Panthera uncia, Panthera pardus pardus</em>, and <em>Panthera tigris</em>)
AID  - 10.1101/2022.04.26.489474
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.04.26.489474
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/04/27/2022.04.26.489474.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/04/27/2022.04.26.489474.full
AB  - The big cats (genus Panthera) represent some of the most popular and charismatic species on the planet. Although some reference genomes are available for this clade, few are at the chromosome level, inhibiting high-resolution genomic studies. Here, we assemble genomes from three members of the genus, the tiger (Panthera tigris), the snow leopard (Panthera uncia), and the African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus), at chromosome or near-chromosome level. We used a combination of short- and long-read technologies, as well as proximity ligation data from Hi-C technology, to achieve high continuity and contiguity for each individual. We hope these genomes will aid in further evolutionary and conservation research of this iconic group of mammals.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.