Wednesday, September 02, 2009

What should be the next genome sequenced?

What should be the next genome sequenced? Olivia Judson has turned this question into an analog of Fantasy Baseball. Submit your suggestions to her/the world at The Fantasy Genome Project - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

Or submit them here. For microbes it is so cheap that there is no point in doing this type of competition (e.g., for a bacterial isolate it would cost ~ 1-2000$$$ to do the shotgun sequencing for most species and then if you want to finish it would cost more, but still not very much)

My suggestion for a bigger genome to do that would be fun, interesting and important --- the blue whale. Biggest animal on the planet. Ever. Just must have its genome.

16 comments:

  1. Erythropsidium. Single-cell planktonic dinoflagellate -- with an *eye* with a *lens*. How the hell does a 60 um cell evolve an eye?

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  2. Yep, Platypus was already done, my poor memory fails me.

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  3. that gigantic grape-sized amoeba found recently in red sea: Gromia Sphaerica.

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  4. The Okapi.

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  5. the eutelic, criptozoic and largely unknown water bear... the tardigrade!

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  6. Echidna! The platypus genome was totally weird. What surprises will the other monotreme hold?

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  7. A cephalopod. Quite fascinating animals.

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  8. Chara, we seriously need one of genome in the order Charales, to better understand gene family evolution in plants and the colonization of the land environment.

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  9. Agree with Sean, a dinoflagellate is the way to go

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  10. I'd say ... the amoeba.
    Cause it has the biggest genome, and hence might contain all of the DNA info that makes it a primordial organism or vector for DNA/ information transfer.

    Regards,
    Michael R.
    michael@mgrc.com.my

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  11. Chicken's, or one of the sharks'. We need to know some things about vertebrate animals that aren't mammals.

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  12. Chicken is being done ... sharks must be being done I would presume but if not that would make my daughter very happy

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  13. Amongst the eukaryotes: Axolotl. It's weird, regenerative and endangered, plus it's a massive genome. Or for the same price a handful of picoeukaryotes?

    Amongst the prokaryotes: Leisingera methylohalidivorans strain MB2. It once drove me round the bend and it being sequenced would be petty revenge.

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