Avoid Wacky (Genome) Races
2000; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 405; Issue: 6783 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/35012272
ISSN1476-4687
Tópico(s)Animal Genetics and Reproduction
ResumoThe completion of the second human chromosome -the first, chromosome 22, was published last December (see Nature 402, 489-495; 1999) -is a milestone in genomics, and a notable achievement for the Japanese and German groups responsible.It also presages a long, hot summer for genomics, from which we will emerge with at least one, and probably two, versions of the human genome sequence.The international, publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP) consortium, to which both the chromosome 21 and 22 teams belong, is likely to finish its draft sequence within weeks.This is generally expected to be 90 per cent complete at 4 ǂ coverage -meaning that each bit of the genome has been sequenced four times to improve accuracy.Meanwhile, the private company Celera Genomics is in the closing stages of 'shotgun sequencing' and starting to assemble the DNA fragments that have been sequenced.Exactly how long it will take Celera to produce an ordered sequence is not clear.But, like the HGP sequences, it will certainly be within the next few months.How are we to compare these parallel projects?The view of Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, that deciphering the sequence of the human genome should be seen less as a 'road race' and more as the discovery of a new continent, "with competing enterprises exploring different areas of the terrain, using somewhat different technologies", certainly has merit.And Eric Lander's ad-
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