Celera completes mouse genome map

Celera Genomics, which published its human genome map earlier this year(Marketletter February 19), has completed the project to assemble and sequence 15.9 billion base pairs of mouse genetic data which it began in April last year. The company now claims that its map provides more than a 99% representation of the genome.

The data was generated exclusively from Celera's high-throughput sequencing factory, propriety algorithms and the whole genome shotgun technique, which enabled the company to identify close to 2.5 million single nucleotide polymorphisms between three mouse strains: 129X1/SvJ, DBA/2J and A/J. The WGS involves randomly shearing the mouse chromosomes into millions of pieces of between 2,000 and 50,000 base pairs in length and inserting these paired-end sequencing fragments into a plasmid vector which produces millions of copies of each fragment when propagated in Eschericia coli.

The next stage of Celera's research program will be to annotate the mouse genome to further refine the number and function of mouse genes. The mouse genome contains about 2.6 billion base pairs, compared to 2.9 billion base pairs in the human genome. Celera hopes that completion of this project will accelerate the characterization of mouse models of human disease by allowing researchers to study the gene structure and line-up, including regulatory sequences outside the protein-coding regions. However, the firm is not going to publish the results but will provide the data to paying customers only. According to the Associated Press, some companies using the data for drug development may pay as much as $15 million to subscribe.