Bovine Genome Sequencing Project (BGSP)

Issues related to the health and food safety of agricultural cattle are of enormous concern to the public because of their importance in the human food chain and the agricultural economy. This project to elucidate the DNA sequence of the cow will advance biology, biotechnology and animal science in several compelling ways, including improving food production, increasing the utility of the organism as an animal model for health and disease, and enabling comparison of the cow DNA sequence with the human to help to further understand the human genetics code.
<p>
The BGSP will be managed by a consortium of biologists with extensive experience in bovine biology and a long time interest in the bovine genome. The project will be carried out at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center. The strategy and genome assembly software will be very similar to that used to successfully sequence the rat genome. In total, the project will require approximately 36 million attempted DNA sequence reactions from DNA templates from both whole genome shotgun (WGS) libraries, and a series of BAC clones that have been mapped across the genome. The draft sequence will have sequence contigs with an average (N50) of >30kb. The entire genome will be covered to > 90% and contained in scaffolds with less than 1,000 gaps. In addition, approximately 24 Mb of selected sequence will be finished to high quality. A selection of full-length cDNA clones will also be sequenced. The current application seeks support for Approximately 11.5 million (about 1/3) of the DNA sequence reads and for the 24 Mb of finished genomic sequence.