zebrafish ensembl database

[Kerstin Jekosch]

The Sanger Institute's first publicly available zebrafish ensembl
database was released yesterday at www.ensembl.org/Danio_rerio 

The zebrafish genome project is a collaboration between the 
Sanger Institute and the zebrafish community, announced during 
the Sanger Institute Zebrafish Workshop 2000 and was started in 
February 2001.  

One of the two strategies being applied to sequencing the genome 
is a whole genome shotgun, but an assembly of this data is not yet 
available. Therefore this Ensembl website uses the sequences 
derived from a second strategy: clone based sequences from 
BAC/PAC libraries. This first release is based on a data freeze 
from January 2002 and comprises 16 Mb (1 percent of the 1.7 Gb 
zebrafish genome). A DAS server for this sequence is available.  

When a first assembly is available (~3x coverage, early summer), 
the finished/unfinished clone sequences will be replaced and a new 
WGS database will be released. Deeper coverage (up to 10x), 
improved assembly software, mapping data and more sensitive 
gene prediction will improve these data. A quarterly update of this 
database is scheduled.  

The zebrafish sequencing project is funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Additional zebrafish resouces, a trace server, mapping data and
information about a clone's status in the sequencing pipeline is
available. 


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Dr. Kerstin Jekosch      phone +441223494971           
Bioinformatics           fax   +441223494919          
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK
kj2 at sanger.ac.uk	        
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