Annotation and Presentation Systems for Arabidopsis Genome Sequencing Project at Kazusa DNA Research Institute

To understand the entire genetic system in higher plants, we initiated large-scale sequencing of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome. We are taking part in sequencing of the entire bottom arm and portions of the top arm of chromosome 5, and also the top arm of chromosome 3 along the line of the international agreement of the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative [1]. We selected the clones containing DNA markers on each chromosome from Mitsui P1 and TAC libraries. The authenticity of the selected clones was examined by anchoring both ends of the clones onto YAC tiling paths of the chromosomes by PCR. The nucleotide sequence of each clone was determined according to the shotgun based strategy with an approximate redundancy of 10. The nished sequences were subjected to similarity search and computer-aided analysis for prediction of protein and RNA coding regions in an semi-automatic system. The nucleotide sequences are available on the public DNA database and on our web database. As of October, 1998, the nucleotide sequences of 174 P1 and TAC clones (12,242,188 bp) have been released. Sequence information on 110 clones (8,138,210 bp) with annotation has been detailed on our web site. A total of 1,927 potential protein-coding genes and/or gene segments were identi ed in annotated regions.