Chromosome-Scale Genome Assembly of the Sheep-Biting Louse Bovicola ovis Using Nanopore Sequencing Data and Pore-C Analysis

Abstract

Bovicola ovis, commonly known as the sheep-biting louse, is an ectoparasite that adversely affects the sheep industry. Sheep louse infestation lowers the quality of products, including wool and leather, causing a loss of approximately AUD 123M per annum in Australia alone. The lack of a high-quality genome assembly for the sheep-biting louse, as well as any closely related livestock lice, has hindered the development of louse research and management control tools. In this study, we present the assembly of B. ovis with a genome size of ~123 Mbp based on a nanopore long-read sequencing library and Illumina RNA sequencing, complemented with a chromosome-level scaffolding using the Pore-C multiway chromatin contact dataset. Combining multiple alignment and gene prediction tools, a comprehensive annotation on the assembled B. ovis genome was conducted and recalled 11,810 genes as well as other genomic features including orf, ssr, rRNA and tRNA. A manual curation using alignment with the available closely related louse species, Pediculus humanus, increased the number of annotated genes to 16,024. Overall, this study reported critical genetic resources and biological insights for the advancement of sheep louse research and the development of sustainable control strategies in the sheep industry.