lpetrich

Announced in this <a href="http://public.bcm.tmc.edu/pa/rgsc-genome.htm" target="_blank">recent press release</a>. About 90% of the 2.8-billion-base-pair rat genome is represented in the ~1000 segments of this first assembly.

However, it may take some months before we see lots of detailed comparisons. But it should not be too difficult to guess which already-sequenced species is the closest.

As to other genome projects, one interesting one is the proposed <a href="http://kango.anu.edu.au/about.html" target="_blank">kangaroo genome</a> project; it should be useful as a mammalian outgroup species. I've found pages for genome projects for

Dog
Cat
Cow
Sheep
Goat
Deer
Pig
Horse
Chicken
Turkey

but they are mostly mapping efforts so far.

Itzpapalotl

The resources of the national human genome research institute (NHGRI) are now being focused on these high priority genomes:

Chicken
Chimpanzee
Cow
Dog
fifteen fungi
Honey Bee
Oxytricha trifallax
Sea Urchin
Tetrahymena thermophila

So they will probably be the next to be finished.

I am looking forward to the completion of the chimpanzee genome becuase of the importance in understanding human evolution, the chicken as it will probably be the first bird, and the bee because insects tend to get ignored despite their importance and how interesting they are.

In addition to marsupial genomes it will be interesting to see what monotreme (egg laying mammals) sequencing will reveal.

lpetrich

These are officially-endorsed priorities, and only officially-endorsed priorities; this does not indicate anything about the actual status of sequencing. Which is sometimes hard to find.

The chicken is the most-studied bird, so it's a logical choice, and it offers a convenient outgroup for Mammalia.

And insects have not been ignored -- one of them, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, has been a favorite model system for nearly a century. And recently, the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae has been sequenced.

The <a href="http://ergo.integratedgenomics.com/GOLD/" target="_blank">Genomes Online Database</a> lists all the publicly-advertised genome projects; that's a good place to look to try to find out the progress of various sequencing efforts.

Also, check out <a href="http://www.genome.gov/page.cfm?pageID=10002154" target="_blank">NHGRI's sequencing proposals</a>.

lpetrich

It is rather interesting to see what the various proposals contain. I will try to order by evolutionary distance, by when the last common ancestor lived.

For the chimp, it's rather obvious -- what makes our species so different in certain ways, despite numerous similarities?

Rhesus monkeys, though more distant, are much more often used in biomedical research -- they are smaller and faster-breeding.

Mice and rats are even more often used in such research; sequences for them are already in the works.

Dogs have been a favorite pet for the last 10,000 years, and have been bred into numerous breeds with a great range of features. Dogs also have a variety of diseases with human analogues, and genes associated with many of them have been located with the help of the patients' pedigrees.

Cows have also had a long association with our species, they have also been bred into numerous breeds, and they are also a model system for some human diseases. Furthermore, cows, like pigs, dogs, and cats, have had less overall genetic evolution over time than mice and rats, making them more comparable to our species in that respect.

Chickens have also been widely bred, they are also useful as model systems -- and like dogs, cats, cows, and pigs, they have less difference in gene order from our species than mice or rats.

Species of frogs and fish are being sequenced elsewhere; some species of them have long been used as model systems, because their embryonic development is easy to watch.

Also elsewhere is sequencing of Ciona ascidians (tunicates, sea squirts); these are invertebrate chordates that change from free-swimming tadpole to sessile adult. Which makes them interesting as a model system for development mechanisms.

Back to these proposals, we come to the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, which has long been used as a model system, partially because it is easy to work with large quantities of its eggs in a lab.

Turning from deuterostomes to protostomes, the other main branch of bilaterally-symmetric animals, we find the insects. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae have already been sequenced; joining them will be the honeybee, Apis mellifera.

Fruit flies have long been used as a genetic-research model system; malaria mosquitoes were selected because of the well-known disease that they carry.

And honeybees have not only economic importance as pollinators, they also have instincts for creating an elaborate social structure.

Also among protostomes, we find the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a millimeter-long worm that lives in soil. It is yet another model system, with its development being easily observed with a microscope.

Branching off earlier is Trichoplax adhaerens, which looks like a little blob, but which nevertheless has differentiated cells.

Going further, we find 15 fungi, several of which were selected because they are disease and pest species.

And the ciliate protozoans Oxytricha nova and Tetrahymena thermophila, long used as model systems.

Curiously absent are plants, of which two have been sequenced: rice and a small plant called Arabidopsis thaliana, the latter being yet another model system.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>