Xiong et al. present the first draft genome for the leopard gecko, Eublepharis macularius. The leopard gecko has been a model for a number of biological questions, including regeneration (Peacock et al., 2015; Gilbert et al., 2013; Delorme et al., 2012), temperature dependent sex determination (Huang et al., 2013; Huang et al., 2008; Putz & Crews, 2006) and development (Vickaryous & McLean, 2012; Wise et al., 2009). The availability of high quality whole genome assembly and annotation would advance studies in the leopard gecko model.

The authors selected a male leopard gecko specimen that was the result of over 30 generations of introgression, which would be expected to reduce heterozygosity in genome sequences. Using a standard multi-library Illumina-based sequencing approach, they created an assembly with scaffold N50 of 664 kb and contig N50 of 20 kb, for a total assembly size of 2.02 Gb out of an expected 2.23 Gb. CEGMA and BUSCO analysis identified 91% partial and 85% complete core eukaryotic gene representation in the genome assembly. Transcriptome sequences from liver, salivary gland, scent glad, and skin from NIH NCBI SRA and predictive approaches were used to annotate 24,755 protein-coding genes. All of these statistics are comparable to other recent squamate genome assemblies and annotations such as Gekko japonicus. No items requiring correction were identified.

Availability of the Eublepharis macularius assembly would be of great value for comparative analysis of vertebrate and reptilian genomes, and subsequent evolutionary genetic analysis may help to identify the differences between eublepharids from other gekkotans.

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