Update on Progress Toward EquCab3

In our last update, we reported the results of our latest assembly effort that augmented the original Sanger sequence data from EquCab2 (Wade et al.) with ~45X of Illumina PE reads from PCR free library preps, producing a contig N50 of 765kb.  This is a nearly 7-fold increase in median contiguity over the current assembly.  Since then, we have generated ~16X coverage using PacBio SMRT cell sequencing, as well as ~40X coverage with a Dovetail Genomics Chicago^TM sequencing library.  Here, we detail the latest N50, and annotation metrics for assembly as we incorporate this new sequence data, and describe our plans for moving forward with the reference over the next few months.