Abstract
Human cryptosporidiosis is caused primarily by Cryptosporidium hominis, C. parvum and C. meleagridis. To accelerate research on parasites in the genus Cryptosporidium, we generated annotated, draft genome sequences of human C. hominis isolates TU502_2012 and UKH1, C. meleagridis UKMEL1, also isolated from a human patient, and the avian parasite C. baileyi TAMU-09Q1. The annotation of the genome sequences relied in part on RNAseq data generated from the oocyst stage of both C. hominis and C. baileyi The genome assembly of C. hominis is significantly more complete and less fragmented than that available previously, which enabled the generation of a much-improved gene set for this species, with an increase in average gene length of 500 bp relative to the protein-encoding genes in the 2004 C. hominis annotation. Our results reveal that the genomes of C. hominis and C. parvum are very similar in both gene density and average gene length. These data should prove a valuable resource for the Cryptosporidium research community.