Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X ConferenceJanuary 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Poster: Genome Sequencing & ESTs
The Rat Genome Sequencing Project (RGSP) is a multi-center consortium that aims to produce a draft sequence of the rat genome within the next year. The program brings together all the required ingredients for a model vertebrate genome project. The RGSP is supported by a joint initiative between the NHLBI and the NHGRI. Sequencing is being carried out at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center (BCM-HGSC), Celera Genomics and the Genome Therapeutics Corporation. The Institute for Genome Research (TIGR) is contributing BAC end sequences, The British Columbia Genome Sequencing Centre (BCGSC) is performing clone-restriction enzyme fingerprinting and Pieter deJong’s laboratory has constructed a new BAC clone library. The Brown Norway Rat strain being sequenced was supplied by an advisor to the consortium, HowardJacob. The effort is also coordinated with the Rat Genome Database (RGD) at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The general sequencing strategy is a hybrid approach between a whole genome shotgun and a clone-by-clone method. Light coverage in each BAC will provide the sequence needed to ‘bin’ whole-genome reads for further local assembly. As of Nov 2001 more than 95,000 BAC clones have been fingerprinted, and 5,000 sequence-skimmed. BAC-end sequences are accumulating at a rate of ~20,000 per month. More than 12 million reads have been submitted to the NCBI trace repository and the average overall genome sequence coverage exceeds 2 X. Preliminary data analyses show the power of the rat sequence in genome comparisons.