Consortium Publishes Physical Map of the Human Genome.(Human Genome Project)

2001 MAR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

The Human Genome Project public consortium announced on February 12, 2001, that it has assembled and published a nearly-completed physical map of the human genome - the genetic blueprint for a human being.

The map, which is more than 95% complete and covers 96% of the genome, was published in the February 15, 2001, issue of the journal Nature, which can be read without charge online at www.nature.com.

Organized by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, with contributions from laboratories throughout the world, the map provided the basis for the selection of clones for sequencing, and in turn provided the scaffold on which the draft human genome sequence was assembled. After the multiple centers involved in the public effort sequenced pieces of DNA, these pieces could be positioned with respect to one another to determine where particular pieces fit with other pieces on a chromosome.

"If you have a large, complicated jigsaw puzzle of, say, a forest scene, a number of trees may look alike," says John D. McPherson, PhD, corresponding author of the paper. "Making this map was like simplifying that large puzzle by dividing it up into many small puzzles, each containing one tree, then putting all the pieces of the small puzzles together, and in turn putting all the small puzzles together to make the whole forest. That way, you can build one tree at a time, and then integrate them into the whole picture."

"In assembling the sequence, it is key to map the pieces back to their proper places in the genome," says Robert H. Waterston, MD, PhD, the James S. McDonnell Professor of Genetics, professor of anatomy and neurobiology, head of the Department of Genetics and director of the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the center that organized the physical mapping effort. "The physical map was a critical guide for the assembly of the human genome sequence."

The public effort to sequence the genome has relied on a map-based approach. The map was a key component in the construction of the working draft of the genome sequence that was announced June 26, 2000.