The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Marine Microbial Genome Sequencing Project
Overview
With funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the J. Craig Venter Institute is sequencing, assembling, and auto-annotating the genomes of 165 marine microbes. The microbes were contributed by 79 collaborators worldwide, and were chosen to cover the major marine taxa. These organisms embody an array of physiological diversity including: carbon fixers, photoautotrophs, photoheterotrophs, nitrifiers, and methanotrophs.
Samples are efficiently being processed through the JCVI’s high-throughput sequencing facility, with 8 to 9 months typically required from sample receipt to annotated genome. Data are deposited into the public domain and are being made available through a web site at the Venter Institute, as well as from GenBank and CAMERA. As of March 2008, we have publically released 126 genomes with an additional 13 scheduled for release over the coming 6 months. This project is furthering our knowledge of the microbes that inhabit the waters around the globe. A systematic review of the first quarter of these genomes released to the public domain revealed 76 publications that used these data, 35 of which used the genomic data as a major, if not the primary, source of input.
Funding
