Worm Breeder's Gazette 13(5): 97 (February 1, 1995)

These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.

The C. elegans Genome Sequencing Project: A Progress Report.

The C. elegans Genome Consortium

Genome Sequencing Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA Sanger Centre, Hinxton Hall, Cambridge, UK.

We present here another progress report for the C. elegans
genome sequencing project. The majority of chromosome
III is now essentially complete, although some gaps remain
where cosmids were not available (Figure 1). While we are
rescuing these regions from YACs and lambda clones, we
will continue to sequence the cosmid-rich regions of other
chromosomes. In the previous issue of the WBG, we reported
significant protein similarities (blastx score >100)
for several cosmids in the central region of chromosome
II. Since then, we have made considerable progress on much
of the remainder of this region. Protein similarities
for several additional cosmids from chromosome II are
presented in Table 1 (all cosmids for which shotgun sequencing
has been completed). We also have begun sequencing cosmids
near the center of the X chromosome. The St. Louis group
started with cosmid C23F12 (near kin-11) and are moving
right to left along the physical map. The Sanger Centre
group are moving left to right from the same starting point.
Similarity data for X chromosome cosmids which have been
processed through the initial shotgun phase are also included
in Table 1. For each putative genomic locus, the highest
blastx score and a brief identifier are listed. Although
the cosmids which contain database hits may not be completely
sequenced, the Consortium will make preliminary sequence
data available to the community with the caveat that it
is preliminary and may still contain errors. Finished
cosmid sequences are now available by anonymous ftp at:
ftp.sanger.ac.uk (directory: pub/C.elegans_sequences).
For further information on blastx similarities, please
contact LaDeana Hillier (lhillier@watson.wustl.edu)
or Steve Jones (sjj@sanger.ac.uk). For information on
sequencing plans or estimated completion times, please
contact Richard Wilson (rwilson@watson.wustl.edu)
or Alan Coulson (alan@sanger.ac.uk). All requests for
cosmid clones should be addressed to Alan Coulson. For
further information about the C. elegans genome project
including our policy statement about sharing both data
and sequencing expertise, please contact Richard Wilson.