Genome project

When printed, the human genome sequence fills around 100 huge books of close print

Genome projects are scientific endeavours that ultimately aim to determine the complete genome sequence of an organism (be it an animal, a plant, a fungus, a bacterium, an archaean, a protist or a virus) and to annotate protein-coding genes and other important genome-encoded features.[1] The genome sequence of an organism includes the collective DNA sequences of each chromosome in the organism. For a bacterium containing a single chromosome, a genome project will aim to map the sequence of that chromosome. For the human species, whose genome includes 22 pairs of autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes, a complete genome sequence will involve 46 separate chromosome sequences.

The Human Genome Project is a well known example of a genome project.[2]

  1. ^ Pevsner, Jonathan (2009). Bioinformatics and functional genomics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, N.J: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9780470085851.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference doe2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).