University of Washington 
Genome Center 
Department of Medicine 
Box 352145 
Seattle, WA 98195 

Maynard Olson 
Director 
206/6857366, Fax: -7344 
mvo@u.washington.edu 
 
 
 
 
 

For more information on 
research projects and 
investigators at the University 
of Washington Genome Center, 
see abstracts in Part 2 of this  
report.  
  
 

However, the Human Genome Project is directed toward completing the human sequence in 5 to 10 years, so the data must be acquired with technology available now. This goal, while clearly feasible, poses substantial organizational and technical challenges. Organizationally, genome centers must begin building dataproduction units capable of sustained, cost-effective operation. Technically, many incremental refinements of current technology must be introduced, particularly those that remove impediments to increasing the scale of DNA sequencing. The University of Washington (UW) Genome Center is active in both areas. 

Production Sequencing 

Both to gain experience in the production of high-quality, low-cost DNA sequence and to generate data of immediate biological interest, the center is sequencing several regions of human and mouse DNA at a current throughput of 2 million bases per year. This "production sequencing" has three major targets: the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) locus on human chromosome6, the mouse locus encoding the alpha subunit of T-cell receptors, and an "anonymous" region of human chromosome 7. 
 
The HLA locus encodes genes that must be closely matched between organ donors and organ recipients. This sequence data is expected to lead to longterm improvements in the ability to achieve good matches between unrelated organ donors and recipients. 

The mouse locus that encodes components of the T-cell­receptor family is of interest for several reasons. The locus specifies a set of proteins that play a critical role in cell-mediated immune responses. It provides sequence data that will help in the design of new experimental approaches to the study of immunity in miceone of the most important experimental animals for immunological research. In addition, the locus will provide one of the first large blocks of DNA sequence for which both human and mouse versions are known. 

Human-mouse sequence comparisons provide a powerful means of identifying the most important biological features of DNA sequence because these features are often highly conserved, even between such biologically different organisms as human and mouse. Finally, sequencing an "anonymous" region of human chromosome 7, a region about which little was known previously, provides experience in carrying out large-scale sequencing under the conditions that will prevail throughout most of the Human Genome Project. 

Technology for Large-Scale Sequencing 

In addition to these pilot projects, the UW Genome Center is developing incremental improvements in current sequencing technology. A particular focus is on enhanced computer software to process raw data acquired with automated laboratory instruments that are used in DNA mapping and sequencing. Advanced instrumentation is commercially available for determining DNA sequence via the "four-color­fluorescence method," and this instrumentation is expected to carry the main experimental load of the Human Genome Project. Raw data produced by these instruments, however, require extensive processing before they are ready for biological analysis. 

Large-scale sequencing involves a "divide and conquer" strategy in which the huge DNA molecules present in human cells are broken into smaller pieces that can be propagated by recombinant-DNA methods. Individual analyses ultimately are carried out on segments of less than 1000 bases. Many such analyses, each of which still contains numerous errors, must be melded together to obtain finished sequence. During the melding, errors in individual analyses must be recognized and corrected. In typical large-scale sequencing projects, the results of thousands of analyses are melded to produce highly accurate sequence (less than one error in 10,000 bases) that is continuous in blocks of 100,000 or more bases. The UW Genome Center is playing a major role in developing software that allows this process to be carried out automatically with little need for expert intervention. Software developed in the UW center is used in more than 50 sequencing laboratories around the world, including most of the large-scale sequencing centers producing data for the Human Genome Project. 

High-Resolution Physical Mapping 

The UW Genome Center also is developing improved software that addresses a higher-level problem in large-scale sequencing. The starting point for large-scale sequencing typically is a recombinant-DNA molecule that allows propagation of a particular human genomic segment spanning 50,000 to 200,000 bases. Much effort during the last decade has gone into the physical mapping of such molecules, a process that allows huge regions of chromosomes to be defined in terms of sets of overlapping recombinant-DNA molecules whose precise positions along the chromosome are known. However, the precision required for knowing relationships of recombinant-DNA molecules derived from neighboring chromosomal portions increases as the Human Genome Project shifts its emphasis from mapping to sequencing. 

High-resolution maps both guide the orderly sequencing of chromosomes and play a critical role in quality control. Only by mapping recombinant-DNA molecules at high resolution can subtle defects in particular molecules be recognized. Such defective human DNA sources, which are not faithful replicas of the human genome, must be weeded out before sequencing can begin. The UW Genome Center has a major program in high-resolution physical mapping which, like the work on sequencing itself, uses advanced computing tools. The center is producing maps of regions targeted for sequencing on a just-in-time basis. These highly detailed maps are proving extremely valuable in facilitating the production of high-quality sequence. 

Ultimate Goal 
Although many challenges currently posed by the Human Genome Project are highly technical, the ultimate goal is biological. The project will deliver immense amounts of high-quality, continuous DNA sequence into publicly accessible databases. These data will be annotated so that biologists who use them will know the most likely positions of genes and have convenient access to the best available clues about the probable function of these genes. The better the technical solutions to current challenges, the better the center will be able to serve future users of the human genome sequence.