Introduction to the Workshop
URLs Provided by Attendees

Abstracts

Mapping

Informatics

Sequencing

Instrumentation

Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Infrastructure

The electronic form of this document may be cited in the following style:
Human Genome Program, U.S. Department of Energy, DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop IV, 1994.

Abstracts scanned from text submitted for November 1994 DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop. Inaccuracies have not been corrected.

High-Throughput DNA Sequencing and Characterization of Diverse Microbial Genomes

J. Craig Venter and Carl Woese[1]
The Institute for Genomic Research
[1]University of Illinois

The broad objective of the Microbial Genome Consortium (MGC) is to characterize the genomes of diverse microorganisms and to use the resulting genome information to further understand microbial phylogeny, physiology, structural biology, and ecology.

Specific Aims

1. Implement MGC as a functioning collaboration and establish a Microbial Genome Advisory Board (MGAB) that will oversee the program and recommend candidate genomes for sequencing. Organisms selected will be phylogenetically diverse and have genomes whose sizes are in the 1.5- to 2.8-Mbp range (or larger in the out years) and are of value in both applied and basic biology. In the first year, this will include the complete sequence of Methanococcus jannaschii which is a barophilic, hyperthermophilic methanogen with a genome size of 2 Mbp.

2. Sequence one or more complete microbial genomes per year and randomly sample a large number of genomes.

3. Analyze the data generated. Screen all new data for related sequences in the databases to identify homologues and gene products. Use comparative analysis to identify reading frames (and other features) in regions without identified products. Annotate the sequences with respect to likely significant features, including known homologues.

4. Deposit the data in the sequence data banks and publish the results in a timely manner. Improve access by establishing a public-access Microbial Genome Data Base (MGDB) containing genome sequence data and related data in an integrated, queryable form (MGDB will be provided in the first year as a cost-share by the laboratories in the consortium).

5. Investigate candidate small eukaryotic genomes for possible later sampling or complete sequencing.

6. Coordinate our efforts and organism selections with ongoing studies of the microbial diversity in natural populations, with an initial focus on subsurface and selected high-temperature ecosystems.

This work is funded by two cooperative agreements with DOE (DE-FC02-95ER61962 to The Institute for Genomic Research and DE-FC02-95ER61963 to the University of Illinois).