Mouse genome completed (again?)
When I looked up some genome sequencing statistics a little while back, I was surprised to learn that only the human and the mouse genome is considered “completed”. Maybe the mouse genome wasn’t anyway, ’cause this month there’s a PLoS Biology paper on the completed genome.
Church DM, Goodstadt L, Hillier LW, Zody MC, Goldstein S, et al. (2009) Lineage-Specific Biology Revealed by a Finished Genome Assembly of the Mouse. PLoS Biol 7(5): e1000112. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000112
Oh well, in any case the distinction between a draft and complete genome sequence is a bit artificial anyway. It is really only a matter of degree. The “complete” human genome sequence still has a lot of gaps and is still being updated (UCSC’s genome browser updated hg18 to hg19 in February this year), and in any case a genome sequence is really only a reference sequence and a lot of the interesting stuff is in genomic variation, so is a genome really “complete” before we have at least a map of the common variations?
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June 5th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Well, I think you made a very good point.
I have been told that the gibbon genome has been sequenced two years ago, but not assembled yet.