title: Snake Genome Sequencing: Results and Future Prospects.
abstract: Snake genome sequencing is in its infancy-very much behind the progress made in sequencing the genomes of humans, model organisms and pathogens relevant to biomedical research, and agricultural species. We provide here an overview of some of the snake genome projects in progress, and discuss the biological findings, with special emphasis on toxinology, from the small number of draft snake genomes already published. We discuss the future of snake genomics, pointing out that new sequencing technologies will help overcome the problem of repetitive sequences in assembling snake genomes. Genome sequences are also likely to be valuable in examining the clustering of toxin genes on the chromosomes, in designing recombinant antivenoms and in studying the epigenetic regulation of toxin gene expression.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology, University of Leiden, Leiden 2300 RA, The Netherlands. h.m.i.kerkkamp@biology.leidenuniv.nl.
authors.forename: Harald M I
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Kerkkamp
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore. dbskinim@nus.edu.sg.
authors.forename: R Manjunatha
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kini
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences and Neuroscience Center, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland. apospelo@mappi.helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: Alexey S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Pospelov
authors.affiliation: Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Darwinweg 2, Leiden 2333 CR, The Netherlands. freek.vonk@naturalis.nl.
authors.forename: Freek J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Vonk
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology, University of Leiden, Leiden 2300 RA, The Netherlands. henkel.c@hsleiden.nl.
authors.forename: Christiaan V
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Henkel
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology, University of Leiden, Leiden 2300 RA, The Netherlands. m.k.richardson@biology.leidenuniv.nl.
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Richardson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016678:Genome; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012911:Snakes / Q000235:genetics*; D014118:Toxins, Biological / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D014118:Toxins, Biological
keywords: Malayan pit viper; genome; genomics; king cobra; reptile; snake