Research overview: domestic cat genome assemblies and research resources

Successive improvements to the domestic cat reference genome have made the species a tractable model for genetics and biomedicine. This overview surveys the development of cat genome assemblies and associated resources such as variant catalogues and the 99 Lives sequencing consortium, which pools feline genomes to find disease mutations. It explains how high-quality assemblies enable mapping of inherited disorders, coat and morphology genes, and breed ancestry, and how cats serve as natural models for human diseases including retinal degeneration, polycystic kidney disease and cardiomyopathy. The survey emphasizes that because cats are lightly domesticated, their genome retains substantial wild variation, and it discusses how shared sequencing efforts accelerate discovery for both feline health and comparative genomics.