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Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of science focusing on genomes.[1] A genome is a complete set of DNA within a single cell of an organism, and as such genomics is a branch of molecular biology concerned with the structure, function, evolution, and mapping of genomes. Genomics aims at the collective characterization and quantification of genes, which direct the production of proteins with the assistance of enzymes and messenger molecules. Proteins in turn make up body structures like organs and tissues as well as control chemical reactions and carry signals between cells. If a cell's DNA is mutated, an abnormal protein may be produced, which can disrupt the body's usual processes and in some cases lead to diseases such as cancer. In contrast to genetics, which refers to the study of genes and their roles in inheritance, genomics is the study of genes, their functions, and related techniques, such as applications of recombinant DNA, DNA sequencing methods, and bioinformatics to sequence, assemble, and analyze the function and structure of genomes.[2][3] Advances in genomics have triggered a revolution in discovery-based research to understand even the most complex biological systems such as the brain.[4] The field includes efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis, epistasis, pleiotropy and other interactions between loci and alleles within the genome.[5] Research carried out into single genes does not generally fall into the definition of genomics unless the aim of this genetic, pathway, and functional information analysis is to elucidate its effect on, place in, and response to the entire genomes networks.[6][not specific enough to verify]

From the Greek [7]gen, "gene" (gamma, epsilon, nu, epsilon) meaning "become, create, creation, birth", and subsequent variants: genealogy, genesis, genetics, genic, genomere, genotype, genus etc. While the word genome (from the German Genom, attributed to Hans Winkler) was in use in English as early as 1926,[8] the term genomics was coined by Tom Roderick, a geneticist at the Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine), over beer at a meeting held in Maryland on the mapping of the human genome in 1986.[9]

Following Rosalind Franklin's confirmation of the helical structure of DNA, James D. Watson and Francis Crick's publication of the structure of DNA in 1953 and Fred Sanger's publication of the Amino acid sequence of insulin in 1955, nucleic acid sequencing became a major target of early molecular biologists.[10] In 1964, Robert W. Holley and colleagues published the first nucleic acid sequence ever determined, the ribonucleotide sequence of alanine transfer RNA.[11][12] Extending this work, Marshall Nirenberg and Philip Leder revealed the triplet nature of the genetic code and were able to determine the sequences of 54 out of 64 codons in their experiments.[13] In 1972, Walter Fiers and his team at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the University of Ghent (Ghent, Belgium) were the first to determine the sequence of a gene: the gene for Bacteriophage MS2 coat protein.[14] Fiers' group expanded on their MS2 coat protein work, determining the complete nucleotide-sequence of bacteriophage MS2-RNA (whose genome encodes just four genes in 3569 base pairs [bp]) and Simian virus 40 in 1976 and 1978, respectively.[15][16]

In addition to his seminal work on the amino acid sequence of insulin, Frederick Sanger and his colleagues played a key role in the development of DNA sequencing techniques that enabled the establishment of comprehensive genome sequencing projects.[5] In 1975, he and Alan Coulson published a sequencing procedure using DNA polymerase with radiolabelled nucleotides that he called the Plus and Minus technique.[17][18] This involved two closely related methods that generated short oligonucleotides with defined 3' termini. These could be fractionated by electrophoresis on a polyacrylamide gel (called polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) and visualised using autoradiography. The procedure could sequence up to 80 nucleotides in one go and was a big improvement, but was still very laborious. Nevertheless, in 1977 his group was able to sequence most of the 5,386 nucleotides of the single-stranded bacteriophage X174, completing the first fully sequenced DNA-based genome.[19] The refinement of the Plus and Minus method resulted in the chain-termination, or Sanger method (see below), which formed the basis of the techniques of DNA sequencing, genome mapping, data storage, and bioinformatic analysis most widely used in the following quarter-century of research.[20][21] In the same year Walter Gilbert and Allan Maxam of Harvard University independently developed the Maxam-Gilbert method (also known as the chemical method) of DNA sequencing, involving the preferential cleavage of DNA at known bases, a less efficient method.[22][23] For their groundbreaking work in the sequencing of nucleic acids, Gilbert and Sanger shared half the 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Paul Berg (recombinant DNA).

The advent of these technologies resulted in a rapid intensification in the scope and speed of completion of genome sequencing projects. The first complete genome sequence of an eukaryotic organelle, the human mitochondrion (16,568 bp, about 16.6 kb [kilobase]), was reported in 1981,[24] and the first chloroplast genomes followed in 1986.[25][26] In 1992, the first eukaryotic chromosome, chromosome III of brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (315 kb) was sequenced.[27] The first free-living organism to be sequenced was that of Haemophilus influenzae (1.8 Mb [megabase]) in 1995.[28] The following year a consortium of researchers from laboratories across North America, Europe, and Japan announced the completion of the first complete genome sequence of a eukaryote, S. cerevisiae (12.1 Mb), and since then genomes have continued being sequenced at an exponentially growing pace.[29] As of October 2011[update], the complete sequences are available for: 2,719 viruses, 1,115 archaea and bacteria, and 36 eukaryotes, of which about half are fungi.[30][31]

Most of the microorganisms whose genomes have been completely sequenced are problematic pathogens, such as Haemophilus influenzae, which has resulted in a pronounced bias in their phylogenetic distribution compared to the breadth of microbial diversity.[32][33] Of the other sequenced species, most were chosen because they were well-studied model organisms or promised to become good models. Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has long been an important model organism for the eukaryotic cell, while the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has been a very important tool (notably in early pre-molecular genetics). The worm Caenorhabditis elegans is an often used simple model for multicellular organisms. The zebrafish Brachydanio rerio is used for many developmental studies on the molecular level, and the flower Arabidopsis thaliana is a model organism for flowering plants. The Japanese pufferfish (Takifugu rubripes) and the spotted green pufferfish (Tetraodon nigroviridis) are interesting because of their small and compact genomes, which contain very little noncoding DNA compared to most species.[34][35] The mammals dog (Canis familiaris),[36] brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), mouse (Mus musculus), and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) are all important model animals in medical research.[23]

A rough draft of the human genome was completed by the Human Genome Project in early 2001, creating much fanfare.[37] This project, completed in 2003, sequenced the entire genome for one specific person, and by 2007 this sequence was declared "finished" (less than one error in 20,000 bases and all chromosomes assembled).[37] In the years since then, the genomes of many other individuals have been sequenced, partly under the auspices of the 1000 Genomes Project, which announced the sequencing of 1,092 genomes in October 2012.[38] Completion of this project was made possible by the development of dramatically more efficient sequencing technologies and required the commitment of significant bioinformatics resources from a large international collaboration.[39] The continued analysis of human genomic data has profound political and social repercussions for human societies.[40]

The English-language neologism omics informally refers to a field of study in biology ending in -omics, such as genomics, proteomics or metabolomics. The related suffix -ome is used to address the objects of study of such fields, such as the genome, proteome or metabolome respectively. The suffix -ome as used in molecular biology refers to a totality of some sort; similarly omics has come to refer generally to the study of large, comprehensive biological data sets. While the growth in the use of the term has led some scientists (Jonathan Eisen, among others[41]) to claim that it has been oversold,[42] it reflects the change in orientation towards the quantitative analysis of complete or near-complete assortment of all the constituents of a system.[43] In the study of symbioses, for example, researchers which were once limited to the study of a single gene product can now simultaneously compare the total complement of several types of biological molecules.[44][45]

After an organism has been selected, genome projects involve three components: the sequencing of DNA, the assembly of that sequence to create a representation of the original chromosome, and the annotation and analysis of that representation.[5]

Historically, sequencing was done in sequencing centers, centralized facilities (ranging from large independent institutions such as Joint Genome Institute which sequence dozens of terabases a year, to local molecular biology core facilities) which contain research laboratories with the costly instrumentation and technical support necessary. As sequencing technology continues to improve, however, a new generation of effective fast turnaround benchtop sequencers has come within reach of the average academic laboratory.[46][47] On the whole, genome sequencing approaches fall into two broad categories, shotgun and high-throughput (aka next-generation) sequencing.[5]

Shotgun sequencing (Sanger sequencing is used interchangeably) is a sequencing method designed for analysis of DNA sequences longer than 1000 base pairs, up to and including entire chromosomes.[48] It is named by analogy with the rapidly expanding, quasi-random firing pattern of a shotgun. Since the chain termination method of DNA sequencing can only be used for fairly short strands (100 to 1000 base pairs), longer DNA sequences must be broken into random small segments which are then sequenced to obtain reads. Multiple overlapping reads for the target DNA are obtained by performing several rounds of this fragmentation and sequencing. Computer programs then use the overlapping ends of different reads to assemble them into a continuous sequence.[48][49] Shotgun sequencing is a random sampling process, requiring over-sampling to ensure a given nucleotide is represented in the reconstructed sequence; the average number of reads by which a genome is over-sampled is referred to as coverage.[50]

For much of its history, the technology underlying shotgun sequencing was the classical chain-termination method, which is based on the selective incorporation of chain-terminating dideoxynucleotides by DNA polymerase during in vitro DNA replication.[19][51] Developed by Frederick Sanger and colleagues in 1977, it was the most widely used sequencing method for approximately 25 years. More recently, Sanger sequencing has been supplanted by "Next-Gen" sequencing methods, especially for large-scale, automated genome analyses. However, the Sanger method remains in wide use in 2013, primarily for smaller-scale projects and for obtaining especially long contiguous DNA sequence reads (>500 nucleotides).[52] Chain-termination methods require a single-stranded DNA template, a DNA primer, a DNA polymerase, normal deoxynucleosidetriphosphates (dNTPs), and modified nucleotides (dideoxyNTPs) that terminate DNA strand elongation. These chain-terminating nucleotides lack a 3'-OH group required for the formation of a phosphodiester bond between two nucleotides, causing DNA polymerase to cease extension of DNA when a ddNTP is incorporated. The ddNTPs may be radioactively or fluorescently labelled for detection in automated sequencing machines.[5] Typically, these automated DNA-sequencing instruments (DNA sequencers) can sequence up to 96 DNA samples in a single batch (run) in up to 48 runs a day.[53]

The high demand for low-cost sequencing has driven the development of high-throughput sequencing (or next-generation sequencing [NGS]) technologies that parallelize the sequencing process, producing thousands or millions of sequences at once.[54][55] High-throughput sequencing technologies are intended to lower the cost of DNA sequencing beyond what is possible with standard dye-terminator methods. In ultra-high-throughput sequencing as many as 500,000 sequencing-by-synthesis operations may be run in parallel.[56][57]

Solexa, now part of Illumina, developed a sequencing method based on reversible dye-terminators technology acquired from Manteia Predictive Medicine in 2004. This technology had been invented and developed in late 1996 at Glaxo-Welcome's Geneva Biomedical Research Institute (GBRI), by Dr. Pascal Mayer and Dr Laurent Farinelli.[58] In this method, DNA molecules and primers are first attached on a slide and amplified with polymerase so that local clonal colonies, initially coined "DNA colonies", are formed. To determine the sequence, four types of reversible terminator bases (RT-bases) are added and non-incorporated nucleotides are washed away. Unlike pyrosequencing, the DNA chains are extended one nucleotide at a time and image acquisition can be performed at a delayed moment, allowing for very large arrays of DNA colonies to be captured by sequential images taken from a single camera.

Decoupling the enzymatic reaction and the image capture allows for optimal throughput and theoretically unlimited sequencing capacity. With an optimal configuration, the ultimately reachable instrument throughput is thus dictated solely by the analogic-to-digital conversion rate of the camera, multiplied by the number of cameras and divided by the number of pixels per DNA colony required for visualizing them optimally (approximately 10 pixels/colony). In 2012, with cameras operating at more than 10MHz A/D conversion rates and available optics, fluidics and enzymatics, throughput can be multiples of 1 million nucleotides/second, corresponding roughly to 1 human genome equivalent at 1x coverage per hour per instrument, and 1 human genome re-sequenced (at approx. 30x) per day per instrument (equipped with a single camera). The camera takes images of the fluorescently labeled nucleotides, then the dye along with the terminal 3' blocker is chemically removed from the DNA, allowing the next cycle.[59]

Ion Torrent Systems Inc. developed a sequencing approach based on standard DNA replication chemistry. This technology measures the release of a hydrogen ion each time a base is incorporated. A microwell containing template DNA is flooded with a single nucleotide, if the nucleotide is complementary to the template strand it will be incorporated and a hydrogen ion will be released. This release triggers an ISFET ion sensor. If a homopolymer is present in the template sequence multiple nucleotides will be incorporated in a single flood cycle, and the detected electrical signal will be proportionally higher.[60]

Overlapping reads form contigs; contigs and gaps of known length form scaffolds.

Paired end reads of next generation sequencing data mapped to a reference genome.

Multiple, fragmented sequence reads must be assembled together on the basis of their overlapping areas.

Sequence assembly refers to aligning and merging fragments of a much longer DNA sequence in order to reconstruct the original sequence.[5] This is needed as current DNA sequencing technology cannot read whole genomes as a continuous sequence, but rather reads small pieces of between 20 and 1000 bases, depending on the technology used. Typically the short fragments, called reads, result from shotgun sequencing genomic DNA, or gene transcripts (ESTs).[5]

Assembly can be broadly categorized into two approaches: de novo assembly, for genomes which are not similar to any sequenced in the past, and comparative assembly, which uses the existing sequence of a closely related organism as a reference during assembly.[50] Relative to comparative assembly, de novo assembly is computationally difficult (NP-hard), making it less favorable for short-read NGS technologies.

Finished genomes are defined as having a single contiguous sequence with no ambiguities representing each replicon.[61]

The DNA sequence assembly alone is of little value without additional analysis.[5]Genome annotation is the process of attaching biological information to sequences, and consists of three main steps:[62]

Automatic annotation tools try to perform these steps in silico, as opposed to manual annotation (a.k.a. curation) which involves human expertise and potential experimental verification.[63] Ideally, these approaches co-exist and complement each other in the same annotation pipeline (also see below).

Traditionally, the basic level of annotation is using BLAST for finding similarities, and then annotating genomes based on homologues.[5] More recently, additional information is added to the annotation platform. The additional information allows manual annotators to deconvolute discrepancies between genes that are given the same annotation. Some databases use genome context information, similarity scores, experimental data, and integrations of other resources to provide genome annotations through their Subsystems approach. Other databases (e.g. Ensembl) rely on both curated data sources as well as a range of software tools in their automated genome annotation pipeline.[64]Structural annotation consists of the identification of genomic elements, primarily ORFs and their localisation, or gene structure. Functional annotation consists of attaching biological information to genomic elements.

The need for reproducibility and efficient management of the large amount of data associated with genome projects mean that computational pipelines have important applications in genomics.[65]

Functional genomics is a field of molecular biology that attempts to make use of the vast wealth of data produced by genomic projects (such as genome sequencing projects) to describe gene (and protein) functions and interactions. Functional genomics focuses on the dynamic aspects such as gene transcription, translation, and proteinprotein interactions, as opposed to the static aspects of the genomic information such as DNA sequence or structures. Functional genomics attempts to answer questions about the function of DNA at the levels of genes, RNA transcripts, and protein products. A key characteristic of functional genomics studies is their genome-wide approach to these questions, generally involving high-throughput methods rather than a more traditional gene-by-gene approach.

A major branch of genomics is still concerned with sequencing the genomes of various organisms, but the knowledge of full genomes has created the possibility for the field of functional genomics, mainly concerned with patterns of gene expression during various conditions. The most important tools here are microarrays and bioinformatics.

Structural genomics seeks to describe the 3-dimensional structure of every protein encoded by a given genome.[66][67] This genome-based approach allows for a high-throughput method of structure determination by a combination of experimental and modeling approaches. The principal difference between structural genomics and traditional structural prediction is that structural genomics attempts to determine the structure of every protein encoded by the genome, rather than focusing on one particular protein. With full-genome sequences available, structure prediction can be done more quickly through a combination of experimental and modeling approaches, especially because the availability of large numbers of sequenced genomes and previously solved protein structures allow scientists to model protein structure on the structures of previously solved homologs. Structural genomics involves taking a large number of approaches to structure determination, including experimental methods using genomic sequences or modeling-based approaches based on sequence or structural homology to a protein of known structure or based on chemical and physical principles for a protein with no homology to any known structure. As opposed to traditional structural biology, the determination of a protein structure through a structural genomics effort often (but not always) comes before anything is known regarding the protein function. This raises new challenges in structural bioinformatics, i.e. determining protein function from its 3D structure.[68]

Epigenomics is the study of the complete set of epigenetic modifications on the genetic material of a cell, known as the epigenome.[69] Epigenetic modifications are reversible modifications on a cells DNA or histones that affect gene expression without altering the DNA sequence (Russell 2010 p.475). Two of the most characterized epigenetic modifications are DNA methylation and histone modification. Epigenetic modifications play an important role in gene expression and regulation, and are involved in numerous cellular processes such as in differentiation/development and tumorigenesis.[69] The study of epigenetics on a global level has been made possible only recently through the adaptation of genomic high-throughput assays.[70]

Metagenomics is the study of metagenomes, genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics or community genomics. While traditional microbiology and microbial genome sequencing rely upon cultivated clonal cultures, early environmental gene sequencing cloned specific genes (often the 16S rRNA gene) to produce a profile of diversity in a natural sample. Such work revealed that the vast majority of microbial biodiversity had been missed by cultivation-based methods.[71] Recent studies use "shotgun" Sanger sequencing or massively parallel pyrosequencing to get largely unbiased samples of all genes from all the members of the sampled communities.[72] Because of its power to reveal the previously hidden diversity of microscopic life, metagenomics offers a powerful lens for viewing the microbial world that has the potential to revolutionize understanding of the entire living world.[73][74]

Bacteriophages have played and continue to play a key role in bacterial genetics and molecular biology. Historically, they were used to define gene structure and gene regulation. Also the first genome to be sequenced was a bacteriophage. However, bacteriophage research did not lead the genomics revolution, which is clearly dominated by bacterial genomics. Only very recently has the study of bacteriophage genomes become prominent, thereby enabling researchers to understand the mechanisms underlying phage evolution. Bacteriophage genome sequences can be obtained through direct sequencing of isolated bacteriophages, but can also be derived as part of microbial genomes. Analysis of bacterial genomes has shown that a substantial amount of microbial DNA consists of prophage sequences and prophage-like elements.[75] A detailed database mining of these sequences offers insights into the role of prophages in shaping the bacterial genome.[76][77]

At present there are 24 cyanobacteria for which a total genome sequence is available. 15 of these cyanobacteria come from the marine environment. These are six Prochlorococcus strains, seven marine Synechococcus strains, Trichodesmium erythraeum IMS101 and Crocosphaera watsonii WH8501. Several studies have demonstrated how these sequences could be used very successfully to infer important ecological and physiological characteristics of marine cyanobacteria. However, there are many more genome projects currently in progress, amongst those there are further Prochlorococcus and marine Synechococcus isolates, Acaryochloris and Prochloron, the N2-fixing filamentous cyanobacteria Nodularia spumigena, Lyngbya aestuarii and Lyngbya majuscula, as well as bacteriophages infecting marine cyanobaceria. Thus, the growing body of genome information can also be tapped in a more general way to address global problems by applying a comparative approach. Some new and exciting examples of progress in this field are the identification of genes for regulatory RNAs, insights into the evolutionary origin of photosynthesis, or estimation of the contribution of horizontal gene transfer to the genomes that have been analyzed.[78]

Genomics has provided applications in many fields, including medicine, biotechnology, anthropology and other social sciences.[40]

Next-generation genomic technologies allow clinicians and biomedical researchers to drastically increase the amount of genomic data collected on large study populations.[79] When combined with new informatics approaches that integrate many kinds of data with genomic data in disease research, this allows researchers to better understand the genetic bases of drug response and disease.[80][81]

The growth of genomic knowledge has enabled increasingly sophisticated applications of synthetic biology.[82] In 2010 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced the creation of a partially synthetic species of bacterium, Mycoplasma laboratorium, derived from the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium.[83]

Conservationists can use the information gathered by genomic sequencing in order to better evaluate genetic factors key to species conservation, such as the genetic diversity of a population or whether an individual is heterozygous for a recessive inherited genetic disorder.[84] By using genomic data to evaluate the effects of evolutionary processes and to detect patterns in variation throughout a given population, conservationists can formulate plans to aid a given species without as many variables left unknown as those unaddressed by standard genetic approaches.[85]

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Genomics - Wikipedia

April 12, 2017 by Pat Bailey Richard Michelmore, director of the UC Davis Genome Center, and colleagues have released the first comprehensive genome assembly for lettuce and the huge Compositae plant family, which includes diverse plants ranging from the sunflower to star thistle. Credit: Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis

Today (April 12), UC Davis researchers announced in Nature Communications that they have unlocked a treasure-trove of genetic information about lettuce and related plants, releasing the first comprehensive genome assembly for lettuce and the huge Compositae plant family.

Garden lettuce, or Lactuca sativa, is the plant species that includes a salad bar's worth of lettuce types, ranging from iceberg to romaine. With an annual on-farm value of more than $2.4 billion, it is the most valuable fresh vegetable and one of the 10 most valuable crops, overall, in the United States.

Lettuce is a member of the huge Compositae family, which includes the good, the bad, and the ugly of the plant world, from the daisy and sunflower to ragweed and the dreaded star thistle.

The genome assemblya compilation of millions of DNA sequences into a useful genetic portraitprovides researchers with a valuable tool for exploring the Compositae family's many related plant species.

"This genome assembly provides the foundation for numerous further genetic, evolutionary and functional studies of this whole family of plants," said Sebastian Reyes-Chin-Wo, the lead author and a graduate student in the laboratory of plant geneticist Richard Michelmore.

"This is particularly significant because Compositae is the most successful family of flowering plants on earth in terms of the number of species and environments inhabited," said Richard Michelmore, who directs the UC Davis Genome Center.

Triplicate genes may explain success:

The researchers found that specific genes in the lettuce genome were consistent with certain physical traitslike the production of a rubber-containing milky sapthat have also been found in taxonomically distinct species, such as the rubber tree.

The study also provided evidence that somewhere during the evolution of lettuce about 45 million years ago, its genome was "triplicated." As a result, one-fourth of the genomeincluding about 30 percent of all of its identified genesnow appears in multiple related regions. Because such genomic duplications may give plant species an advantage in colonizing new environments, the ancient triplication event might, in part, explain the success of the Compositae plant family.

New technology yields more precise information:

Michelmore noted that this is the first reported genome assembly of a plant species resulting from use of a new technology that gives information about the physical proximity of the DNA sequences to which proteins are bound.

The new approach, developed by Dovetail Genomics, a company spun out from UC Santa Cruz, resulted in a more contiguous and accurate genome assembly, even though lettuce has one of the larger plant genomes sequenced to date, he said.

More information: Sebastian Reyes-Chin-Wo et al, Genome assembly with in vitro proximity ligation data and whole-genome triplication in lettuce, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14953

Provided by: UC Davis

Feb 20, 2014

Advances in DNA sequencing technologies have enormous potential for the plant sciences. With genome-scale data sets obtained from these new technologies, researchers are able to greatly improve our understanding of evolutionary ...

Apr 05, 2016

As vegetable growers face a lack of skilled farm labor and higher production costs, they are searching for effective, lower-cost mechanical means of getting their products to market. In a study in the February 2016 issue ...

Dec 03, 2015

Researchers from the University of Bristol have uncovered one of the reasons for the evolutionary success of flowering plants.

Mar 28, 2016

Like most annuals, lettuce plants live out their lives in quiet, three-act dramas that follow the seasons. Seed dormancy gives way to germination; the young plant emerges and grows; and finally in the climax of flowering, ...

Apr 06, 2015

Prickly lettuce, a common weed that has long vexed farmers, has potential as a new cash crop providing raw material for rubber production, according to Washington State University scientists.

May 15, 2015

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in California have developed 16 new lettuce breeding lines. Lettuce production in the United States is concentrated mostly in California and Arizona, where it is grown year-round. ...

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Gene salad: Lettuce genome assembly published

SmartNews Keeping you current Sandy Maliki (Barry Eggleton/Pure Dingo)

smithsonian.com April 17, 2017

It sounds like an argument scientists might have during a night of drinking: Which creature has the world's most interesting genome? But the question is more than a passing musing.

San Francisco biotech company Pacific Biosciences held a public competition to determine which critter should receive the honor. The winner: Sandy Maliki, a pure-bred Australiandesert dingo. The company will now sequence the dingo's genometo help researchers study the process of domestication.

Sandy beat out four other interesting finalists in the competition, receiving 41 percent of the public votes, which were cast from around the world. This is the fourth year the company has sponsored the competition. The company invites researchers to send in grant proposals explaining why the interesting plants and animals they study should be sequenced. Then a committee of scientists whittles the entries down to five finalists for the final public vote.

This year, the finalists included the explosive bombardier beetle, which emits a boiling hot explosive gas when attacked; the pink pigeon, an endangered relative of the extinct dodo;a sea slugthatsteals chloroplasts from algaeand the temple pit viper, whose venom could have medicinal value.

While Rhett Jones at Gizmodo argues that the dingo won because it's cuteand the internet loves cutethe researchers from the University of New South Wales who put together the proposal think its genome has scientific merit, too.

Bill Ballard at UNSW tells Kim Arlington at The Sydney Morning Herald that Darwin believed domestication was a two-step process. The first step is a naturally occurring process called unconscious selection, which leads to traits in an animal that might make it suitable for domestication. The second step is artificial selection, in which humans selectively breed those animals to amplify or diminish specific traits.

Sandy is one of three wild desert dingo pups found abandoned in the desert in central Australia in 2014. Purebred dingoes are rare because of widespread interbreeding with domestic dogs. So Sandy can teach researchers about unconscious selection and what natural traits made wild dogs suitable for domestication.

There's a lot people don't know about dingos. It's not clear whether they are a type of domestic dog or a distinct species. It's also unknown how they arrived in the Land Down Under. But since native Australians did not domesticate dingos, purebred animals remain essentially unchanged since they arrived.

Sandy is truly a gift to science, Ballard says in a press release. [S]equencing Sandy's genome will help pinpoint some of the genes for temperament and behavior that underlie the transition from wild animals to perfect pets.

Ballard also says theres a conservation aspect to sequencing the genomesince it will allow researchers to improve tests to determine the genetic purity of dingoes.

The gene sequencing will take place at the University of Arizona using PacBios Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing technique, which sequences much longer sections of DNA at one time compared to other techniques. The data will then be analyzed by the German company Computomics.

Last year, a type of plant that extracts heavy metals from the soil won the competition.

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Jason Daley is a Madison, Wisconsin-based writer specializing in natural history, science, travel, and the environment. His work has appeared in Discover, Popular Science, Outside, Mens Journal, and other magazines.

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Dingo Wins Competition for World's Most Interesting Genome ... - Smithsonian