ROCKVILLE, MD--September 25, 2003-- Researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and The Center for the Advancement of Genomics (TCAG) have sequenced and analyzed 1.5X coverage of the dog genome. The research, published in the September 26th issue of the journal Science, asserts that a new method of genomic sequencing, partial shotgun sequencing, is a cost-effective and efficient method to sequence and analyze many more large eukaryotic genomes now that there are a number of reference genomes available with which to compare. This important new study was funded by the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation.

The TIGR/TCAG team assembled 6.22 million sequences of dog DNA for nearly 80% coverage of the genome. Comparing the dog sequence data with current drafts of the human and mouse genome sequences showed that the dog lineage was the first to diverge from the common ancestor of the three species and that the human and dog are much more similar to each other at the genetic level than to the mouse. The group also identified 974,400 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the dog. These genetic variations are important in understanding the genes that contribute to diseases and traits among various breeds of dogs.

The dog genome sequencing project, led by Ewen Kirkness, Ph.D., investigator at TIGR, revealed that more than 25% or 650 million base pairs of DNA overlap between human and dog. The sequence data was used to identify an equivalent dog gene for 75% of known human genes. In addition to this core set of common genes, the sequence data has revealed several hundred gene families that have expanded or contracted since divergence of the dog lineage from our common ancestor. For ex
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Contact: Robert Koenig
rkoenig@tigr.org
301-838-5880
The Institute for Genomic Research
25-Sep-2003