{"doi":"10.1101/2025.10.14.682431","title":"The complete genome of a songbird","abstract":"Abstract Bird genomes are the smallest among amniotes, but remain challenging to assemble due to their structural complexity. This study presents the first fully phased, diploid, telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference genome for the zebra finch ( Taeniopygia guttata ), a model organism for neuroscience and evolutionary genomics. Combining multiple sequencing strategies resulted in closing nearly all gaps, adding ∼90 Mbp of previously missing sequence (7.8%). This includes T2T assemblies for all microchromosomes, including dot chromosomes, and the previously almost entirely missing chr16. The T2T genome is comprehensively annotated for genes, repeats, structural variants, and long-read methylation calls. Complete centromeric structures were assembled and annotated along with kinetochore binding sites. Relative to the previous high-quality reference of the Vertebrate Genomes Project, 2,778 (8.51%) previously unassembled or unannotated genes were identified, of which 9% overlap with segmental duplications. This first complete genome of a songbird, now the new public reference, illuminates avian genome architecture and function.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2025,"id":555788,"datarank":0.20794415416798362,"base_score":1.3862943611198906,"endowment":1.3862943611198906,"self_citation_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":35.18991258606018,"corpus_rank":8206,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":1,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":true,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9464,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1162178,"name":"Nivesh Jain","orcid":"0000-0002-8134-2904","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":21289,"name":"Jack  A. 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