Saccharomyces cerevisiae S288C genome annotation: a working hypothesis.

The S. cerevisiae genome is the most well-characterized eukaryotic genome and one of the simplest in terms of identifying open reading frames (ORFs), yet its primary annotation has been updated continually in the decade since its initial release in 1996 (Goffeau et al., 1996). The Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD; www.yeastgenome.org) (Hirschman et al., 2006), the community-designated repository for this reference genome, strives to ensure that the S. cerevisiae annotation is as accurate and useful as possible. At SGD, the S. cerevisiae genome sequence and annotation are treated as a working hypothesis, which must be repeatedly tested and refined. In this paper, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the completion of the S. cerevisiae genome sequence, we discuss the ways in which the S. cerevisiae sequence and annotation have changed, consider the multiple sources of experimental and comparative data on which these changes are based, and describe our methods for evaluating, incorporating and documenting these new data.