Assembly and annotation of a BAC clone from a newly sequenced genome of Anopheles funestus

Whole genome sequencing of disease vectors such as Aedes aegypti, Anopheles gambiae, and recently Anopheles funestus are enabling scientists to identify and investigate regions involved in the genetic plasticity of these vectors in order to formulate new disease control strategies. In the current study, sequence data from a single Anopheles funestus BAC clone is examined in order to predict and annotate genes in this region. After cloning, cleaning contaminating sequences, and assembling a consensus BAC sequence, several prediction algorithms provided the data then used to refine the predictions by selecting only overlapping predicted genes. These genes and the assembled BAC sequence were compared to the Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae annotated genomes found in the Ensembl database. Two genes of the Anopheles funestus BACwere found with high similarity in Drosophila melanogaster. Furthermore, these genes showed synteny across Anopheles funestus and Drosophila melanogaster by appearing in clusters in both organisms. A high degree of conservation of one of these genes was discovered when compared with Anopheles gambiae; this gene presented a 100% similarity with respect to the BAC sequence. Putative genes belonging to the KQT Potassium Voltage Gated Channel Subfamily were found to belong to a syntenic cluster conserved both in Drosophila melanogaster and in Anopheles gambiae.