Tick Genome Assemblies: Overcoming biological limitations through advances in sequencing and assembly

Ticks are blood-feeding arthropods with approximately 1,000 species, however, only 24 species currently have a genome assembly. These genome assemblies are important resources to advance tick biology and control of tick-associated diseases. Generating tick genome assemblies is challenging due to their small body size (low DNA input), large genome size (approximately 2.4 Gbp for hard ticks), DNA contamination (from microbiota and host bloodmeals), and abundant transposable elements. Advances in sequencing technologies and assembly software have facilitated an increasing number of tick assemblies from 2011 to 2025. We characterize and assess the 54 tick genome assemblies within public genome databases using QUAST-LG and BUSCO compleasm. Then we evaluate the impact on these tick genome assemblies of biological source material, sequencing platform, and gene and repetitive element annotation. We identify 34 high-quality assemblies from 21 species that are well-suited for a variety of downstream analyses. Future tick genome assemblies should use long-read sequencing and Hi-C scaffolding to improve genomic resources for these unique blood-feeding parasites.