Genetic diversity and population structure of the endangered marsupial Sarcophilus harrisii (Tasmanian devil).

ABSTRACT: The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is threatened with extinction because of a contagious cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease. The inability to mount an immune response and to reject these tumors might be caused by a lack of genetic diversity within a dwindling population. Here we report a whole-genome analysis of two animals originating from extreme northwest and southeast Tasmania, the maximal geographic spread, together with the genome from a tumor taken from one of them. A 3.3-Gb de novo assembly of the sequence data from two complementary next-generation sequencing platforms was used to identify 1 million polymorphic genomic positions, roughly one-quarter of the number observed between two genetically distant human genomes. Analysis of 14 complete mitochondrial genomes f

SUBMITTER: Miller W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3145710 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature