A novel fishing cat reference genome for the evaluation of potential germline risk variants

The fishing cat, Prionailurus viverrinus, displays a fish hunting behavior uncommon among most other cats. Estimated population declines in the wild increase the significance of its existing zoo populations, particularly with a recent high prevalence of transitional cell carcinoma (TCC), a form of bladder cancer. We hypothesize that its small captive population may harbor TCC risk variants at the germline level. To aid conservation efforts and investigate the genetics of TCC, we present a new fishing cat chromosomescale assembly, reaffirm its close genetic relationship with the Asian leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), and identify and characterize single nucleotide variants (SNVs) from whole genome sequencing (WGS) data of healthy and TCC cats. Among genes previously associated with bladder cancer risk in human BRCA2 was found to have the highest number of missense mutations in fishing cats, with only two variants exhibiting a predominance in TCC cats. These new fishing cat genomic resources will aid efforts to improve their genetic fitness and enhance the comparative study of feline genomes.