BERKELEY, CA —  A substantial short cut to the biologically important information embedded in the human genome has been taken by an international research consortium with the completion of a draft sequence of the genome of the Japanese pufferfish Fugu rubripes. The Fugu draft sequence will be announced at the 13th International Genome Sequencing and Analysis Conference in San Diego, California on October 26th.

For more info: View/download the Fugu Facts sheet in pdf or html format.

Although the Fugu genome contains essentially the same genes and regulatory sequences as the human genome, it carries those genes and regulatory sequences in approximately 365 million bases as compared to the 3 billion bases that make up human DNA. With far less so-called "junk DNA" to sort through, finding genes and controlling sequences in the Fugu genome should be a much easier task. The information can then be used to help identify these same elements in the human genome. This Fugu draft sequence is the first public assembly of an animal genome by the whole genome shotgun sequencing method.

	The Fugu genome is the first vertebrate genome to be draft sequenced after the human genome. Its compact form and similarity to our genome will make it an important tool for getting at the information encoded in the human sequence.

The consortium that sequenced the Fugu genome was led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in Walnut Creek, California, and the Singapore Biomedical Research Council's Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB). Also part of the consortium are the MRC UK Human Genome Mapping Resource Centre (HGMP-RC) in Cambridge, England, the Cambridge University Department of Oncology, and the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington. The consortium's sequencing efforts were bolstered by two US companies, Celera Genomics of Rockville, Maryland, and Myriad Genetics, Inc., of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Fugu genome project was initiated in 1989 by Sydney Brenner in Cambridge, England, along with his colleagues Greg Elgar, Samuel Aparicio, and Byrappa Venkatesh. Brenner is known for his work in molecular genetics and for the establishment of C. elegans (the worm) as a model organism. Formed in November 2000, the International Fugu Genome Consortium represents one of the largest international genome-sequencing projects since the historic Human Genome Project. The goal of the consortium is to sequence, assemble, annotate, and ultimately finish the Fugu genome, and disseminate the information to the greater research community.

Brenner, now a Distinguished Professor at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego and Board Director of the Singapore Biomedical Research Council, said, "This represents the culmination of more than a decade of work in Cambridge and Singapore. Without JGI's initiative and Singapore's strong support, the project would have languished. We already know that it will illuminate the human genome sequence and help us to understand it."

"All organisms are related," said Trevor Hawkins, Director of the Joint Genome Institute, which is one of the largest publicly funded genome sequencing centers in the world and itself a consortium operated jointly by the three University of California-managed DOE national laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos. "Although the Fugu genome is only one-eighth the size of our human genome, it has a similar complement of genes. Yet we know very little about the structure of those genes and how they are turned on and off. That's why we're sequencing genomes of microbes, sea squirts, and now Fugu — because these comparative genomics programs are key to understanding the biology of the human genome."

A whole genome shotgun strategy was employed to sequence the Fugu genome. "We first chopped the genome up into pieces that are small enough to sequence," said Dan Rokhsar, Associate Director for Computational Genomics at the JGI. "The challenge was then to reassemble the genome by putting together nearly four million of these overlapping fragments — in the same way that you'd put together a giant jigsaw puzzle." Solving this puzzle was made possible by a new computational algorithm, JAZZ, that has been developed at JGI to handle large genome sequencing projects. This method has also been implemented at the DOE's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) — the world's largest supercomputer dedicated to unclassified research.

Chris Tan, founding Director of IMCB, says that the draft Fugu genome will yield much more accurate estimates of the gene repertoire in humans. "We will also now be able to refine many of the features of the noncoding regions that may prove to have regulatory control over genes expressed in the human genome." Singapore IMCB is already leveraging the genome sequence through the creation of a live Fugu genome bioinformatics analysis pipeline producing annotations and comparisons for the community. Tan anticipates that over the next few years the Singapore group and the Institute for Systems Biology will finish selected regions of the genome, based upon their biology programs. Tan added, "The IMCB's participation in the Consortium and contribution to this important project is testimony that Singapore has a key role to play in the international biomedical sciences scene."

The Consortium intends to publish an initial analysis of the draft Fugu genome early next year. Up-to-date Fugu sequence information can be freely accessed via JGI's web portal at http://Fugu.jgi-psf.org, at the IMCB website http://www.fugu-sg.org, and at the MRC UK HGMP Fugu site http://fugu.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk. Additional Fugu information can be found at http://www.jgi.doe.gov/programs/fugu.htm and in the attached Fugu Fact Sheet.

Media Contacts:

Dr. Trevor Hawkins and Dr. Dan Rokhsar of the JGI can be reached at (925) 296-5797 or via e-mail at TLHawkins@lbl.gov or DSRokhsar@lbl.gov.

Dr. Sydney Brenner of the The Salk Institute for Biological Studies can be reached at (858) 453-4100 or via e-mail at sbancroft@molsci.org.

Dr. Louis Lim of the Singapore Biomedical Research Council can be reached at (65) 8379130 or via e-mail at louis_lim@nstb.gov.sg.

Dr. Chris Tan of the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore can be reached via e-mail at yht@mcbsgs1.imcb.nus.edu.sg.

Dr. B.Venkatesh, of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore can be reached at (65)8743633 or via email at mcbbv@imcb.nus.edu.sg.

Dr. Greg Elgar of the MRC UK Human Genome Mapping Resource Centre can be reached at 44 (0)1223 494563 or via e-mail at gelgar@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk.

Dr. Samuel Aparicio of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology Singapore and Cambridge University Department of Oncology can be reached at +44 777 189 2667 or via email saparici@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk.

Dr. Lee Rowen of the Institute for Systems Biology can be reached at (206) 732-1272 or via e-mail at lrowen@systemsbiology.org.

Dr. J. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics can be reached through Heather Kowalski at (240) 453-3343 or via e-mail at heather.kowalski@celera.com.

Bill Hockett, Myriad Genetics, Inc. can be reached at (801) 584-3600 or via e-mail at bhockett@myriad.com.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.