Largest plant genome (assembled)

The largest plant genome (i.e., total amount of DNA in the nucleus of a cell) to have been sequenced and assembled into its original configuration is that of the European mistletoe (Viscum album) for which 94 billion base pairs (Gbp, or gigabase pairs) – about 30 times larger than the human genome – has so far been curated by scientists from the multi-institutional Darwin Tree of Life project (UK), as reported in December 2022.

The reconstruction of the mistletoe's genetic material was conducted by genomicists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Edinburgh, both of which are members of the Darwin Tree of Life initiative.

The largest plant genome – as well as for any organism assessed to date using best-practice methods – is 160.45 Gbp for the Tmesipteris oblanceolata fork fern. It is native to tropical forests in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia and other nearby islands, such as Vanuatu, in the south-west Pacific Ocean. The findings were published in the journal iScience on 31 May 2024.

In the animal kingdom, the current record for the largest genome belongs to the marbled lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus), a freshwater fish from Africa with 129.9 Gbp of DNA, as documented in the Journal of Experimental Zoology in 1972. The largest animal genome to have been sequenced and assembled is that of the related Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri): 43 Gbp of its genome has been reconstructed according to a study in Nature in 2021; this surpassed the previous 32 Gbp curated for the axolotl salamander (Ambystoma mexicanum) as of 2018.