Plant Genome II Conference
Town & Country Conference Center, San Diego, CA, January, 1994.
PG-II: YEAST GENOME ANALYSIS: FROM SEQUENCE TO FUNCTION
YEAST GENOME ANALYSIS: FROM SEQUENCE TO FUNCTION
Stephen G Oliver, Department of Biochemistry & Applied
Molecular Biology, UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK.
The budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisia, is one of the
most important and accessible model eukaryotes employed in
molecular biological research. Yeast has a small genome, less
than four times the size of that of E. coli, and divides it
between a large number of chromosomes (sixteen, in all). The
European Community Yeast Genome Sequencing Consortium is actively
engaged in the sequencing of these chromosomes. We have
completed the sequence of chromosomes III and XI and will soon
finish that of chromosome 11. This presentation will review
current progress in yeast genome sequencing and discuss the
general rules which are emerging concerning genome organization,
recombination and evolution.
Systematic genome sequencing is discovering new genes at a
far faster rate than has previously been the case for either
classical or molecular genetics. For approximately half of the
genes studied, the sequence gives no clue as to function. It is
evident that the functional analysis of these novel genes will
require a methodology every bit as systematic and efficient as
DNA sequencing itself. The prospects for such a function search
will be discussed, emphasising the need to establish a
hirearchical taxonomy of gene function.
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