The aardvark and armadillo are prime, if unlikely, candidates for genome sequencing, says a US gene expert.
Stephen O鈥橞rien of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the US National Cancer Institute has drawn up a set of six basic criteria that he hopes scientists will use to judge which mammal genomes to sequence 鈥� and in what order.
The human, mouse and rat, which are all the subjects of ongoing sequencing projects, fall within one of the four principal mammal lineages, says O鈥橞rien.
Advertisement
It would make sense to choose an example of an animal from each of the three other lineages 鈥� such as the anteater, aardvark and pig, he says. There are also good arguments for sequencing mammals with a small genome size, as well as key livestock and pets, he says.
鈥淲e can鈥檛 sequence all 10 million species, but in the next 20 years, we鈥檒l probably be sequencing a dozen,鈥� he told New 杏吧原创. 鈥淭he question is, what are they going to be? At the moment, there is no real discussion about that. We鈥檙e just saying here are some criteria to use.鈥�
Rats and zebrafish
The US National Institutes of Health, which provides public funds for genome research in the US, is holding a meeting on 9 and 10 July in Bethesda, Maryland, to consider a framework programme for future sequencing projects.
A spokeswoman for the Sanger Centre, Cambridge, which is involved in the Human Genome Project, says O鈥橞rien鈥檚 paper 鈥渋s useful as a discussion piece. It pre-empts what will be coming up at the NIH meeting.鈥�
Decisions to sequence the mouse, rat and zebrafish genomes made obvious sense, says O鈥橞rien, because their use as experimental animals make them relevant to human biology. But as more sequences are completed, it becomes less clear what to go for next.
There are six key criteria that should be considered, he argues; coverage of each branch of the mammalian family tree, relevance to understanding human biology and medicine, economic importance to agriculture, genome characteristics (including genome size), recognition of whether the animal possesses extremely specialised, or more primitive, ancestral features, and species diversity.
鈥淣one of these criteria are more important than the other 鈥� they are all important,鈥� O鈥橞rien says. 鈥淐learly human biomedical merit is most important for the people who write the cheques because they鈥檙e interested in human health. But if we鈥檙e interested in developmental biology or genome organisation, we have to pay attention to different things.鈥�
More at: Science (vol 292, p 2264)