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First Golden Jackal Genome Placed 98.4% of Its Sequence on Chromosome-Scale Scaffolds

Golden jackal standing in natural habitat
Research · Genetics & genomics

The first genome assembly for the golden jackal (Canis aureus) places almost the entire 2.53-billion-base-pair sequence into chromosome-scale scaffolds. The study, published on 6 March 2026, used tissue from a subadult male collected in Villach, Austria, and provides a new reference for research on the species’ genetics, range expansion and interactions with pathogens.

The jackal had been shot by a hunter in Carinthia in June 2023, and spleen tissue from the post-mortem examination was used for high-accuracy long-read DNA sequencing with PacBio HiFi technology.

Almost the entire assembly was anchored to chromosomes

The finished assembly has a total length of 2.53 billion base pairs in 325 scaffolds — assembled blocks of DNA sequence. The 40 largest scaffolds could be assigned to the expected 38 autosomes plus the X and Y chromosomes and together contain 98.4% of the full assembly.

The authors describe the result as a pseudochromosomal genome. The stored tissue was unsuitable for producing Hi-C data, which can order sequences using their physical proximity inside chromosomes, so the researchers instead used the Mexican grey wolf genome as a reference for chromosome-level scaffolding and then filled remaining gaps with the golden jackal long reads. The Y chromosome remained only partly resolved: its pseudoautosomal and male-specific regions could not be linked into one complete sequence.

More than 20,000 protein-coding genes were annotated

The standardized annotation identified 20,620 protein-coding genes and 17,626 non-coding genes. Repetitive DNA made up 40.6% of the assembly, with LINE elements — long repeated DNA sequences related to mobile genetic elements — forming the largest component. Measures of gene completeness and read mapping both indicated a highly complete assembly.

The authors describe the genome as a reference resource rather than evidence for one particular biological mechanism. It is intended to make future comparisons of golden jackal populations more precise, including work on dispersal, adaptation, hybridisation and host–pathogen dynamics.

The assembly is publicly available through GenBank under accession GCF_053574225.1, allowing other researchers to reuse it in population-genetic, evolutionary and disease-ecology studies.

Sources and image credit

  1. Winter, S., Meißner, R., Prost, S., Greve, C., Gerheim, C., Arakelyan, M., Aghayan, S. A., Ghazaryan, A., Hatlauf, J., & Burger, P. A. (2026). A pseudochromosomal reference genome of the golden jackal, Canis aureus. Journal of Heredity, 117(4), 901–907. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esag021Primary research article published online 6 March 2026. The first golden jackal genome assembly spans 2.53 Gb in 325 scaffolds, with 98.41% anchored to the expected 38 autosomes plus X and Y chromosomes; annotation identified 20,620 protein-coding genes. The sample came from a subadult male collected in Villach, Carinthia, Austria, in 2023.

Image: Vengolis — golden jackal (Canis aureus) standing in natural vegetation, photographed 22 April 2023; Wikimedia Commons; representative species image, not the Austrian male used for the genome assembly · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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