A complete telomere-to-telomere assembly of the maize genome

A complete telomere-to-telomere (T2T) finished genome has been the long pursuit of genomic research. Through generating deep coverage ultralong Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) and PacBio HiFi reads, we report here a complete genome assembly of maize with each chromosome entirely traversed in a single contig. The 2,178.6 Mb T2T Mo17 genome with a base accuracy of over 99.99% unveiled the structural features of all repetitive regions of the genome. There were several super-long simple-sequence-repeat arrays having consecutive thymine-adenine-guanine (TAG) tri-nucleotide repeats up to 235 kb. The assembly of the entire nucleolar organizer region of the 26.8 Mb array with 2,974 45S rDNA copies revealed the…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 2022010202, 2022-03, 62031003
• CA
  Chinese Academy of Sciences
• NK
  National Key Research and Development Program of China

  Awards: 2022-03, 2021YFF1000500, -2022
• IO
  Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• IO
  Institute of Genetics