First Global Sequencing Effort Begins

摘要

The list of organisms whose DNA is being cranked wholesale through U.S. genome sequencing labs includes a worm, bacteria, fruit flies, and humans. Notably absent are plants--until now. Last week the U.S. government ended the omission by putting up 12.7 million dollar to begin large-scale sequencing of Arabidobsis thaliana, a small, flowering member of the mustard family. The awards will allow the United States to join other countries already sequencing Arabidopsis in an international collaboration to decipher the plant's entire genome by 2004.