Genome project - Definition and Overview

Genome projects are scientific endeavours that aim to map the genome of a living being or of a species (be it an animal, a plant, a fungus, a bacterium, an archaean, a protist or a virus), that is, the complete set of genes caried by this living being or virus. The Human Genome Project was such a project. Some have argued that the era of genomics is one of the more fundamental advances in human history.

Example genome projects

Many organisms have genome projects that have either completed or will complete in the 21st century, including:

• Homo sapiens Humans
• Mus musculus Laboratory mouse
• Rattus norvegicus Laboratory rat
• Chimp
• Gallus gallus Chicken
• Macropus eugenii Kangaroo
• Felis domesticus Cat
• Canis lupis Dog
• Drosophila melanogaster Fruit fly
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae Yeast
• Neurospora crassa A type of mold
• Arabidopsis thaliana Mustard weed
• Oryza sativa Rice
• Triticum spp Wheat
• Zea mays Maize (or corn)
• Escherichia coli bacterium E.coli
• SARS virus
• Arbacia punctulata the purple-spined sea urchin
• Caenorhabditis elegans a nematode worm
• Brachydanio rerio Zebrafish
• Xenopus laevis The African clawed toad
• Oryzias latipes A medakafish
• Takifugu rubipres A pufferfish

See also

• model organism
• International HapMap Project

External links

• National Center for Biotechnology Information Genome Project Database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=genomeprj)