Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 18, 2025
Quantification of Circulating Pig-Specific DNA in the Blood of a Xenotransplantation Model
Published on: September 22, 2020
An improved pig reference genome sequence to enable pig genetics and genomics research
Amanda Warr1, Nabeel Affara2, Bronwen Aken3
1The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, The University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Campus, Midlothian EH25 9RG, UK.
Background:
The domestic pig (Sus scrofa) is important both as a food source and as a biomedical model given its similarity in size, anatomy, physiology, metabolism, pathology, and pharmacology to humans. The draft reference genome (Sscrofa10.2) of a purebred Duroc female pig established using older clone-based sequencing methods was incomplete, and unresolved redundancies, short-range order and orientation errors, and associated misassembled genes limited its utility.
Results:
We present 2 annotated highly contiguous chromosome-level genome assemblies created with more recent long-read technologies and a whole-genome shotgun strategy, 1 for the same Duroc female (Sscrofa11.1) and 1 for an outbred, composite-breed male (USMARCv1.0). Both assemblies are of substantially higher (>90-fold) continuity and accuracy than Sscrofa10.2.
Conclusions:
These highly contiguous assemblies plus annotation of a further 11 short-read assemblies provide an unprecedented view of the genetic make-up of this important agricultural and biomedical model species. We propose that the improved Duroc assembly (Sscrofa11.1) become the reference genome for genomic research in pigs.
