65207
Caenorhabditis japonica
The <i>Caenorhabditis japonica</i> genome sequencing project at the Washington University School of Medicine is part of the roundworm comparative genomics project that will add three more species (<i>C. japonica</i>, <i>C. remanei</i> and <i>C. sp.</i> CB5161) to the two species (<i>C. elegans</i> and <i>C. briggsae</i>) that are already in public database.  <i>C. japonica</i> is an outgroup, the closest known, to the other <i>Caenorhabditis</i> species. This is of particular importance in studying evolutionary variations in behaviour, ecology and gene composition, and should contribute to a better understanding of genome structure and function.  A combination of large insert clone mapping and whole genome shotgun (WGS) assembly was used as sequencing strategy. The <i>C. japonica</i> genome was sequenced to a depth of 6.3X, where the expected genome size is 83 Mb. The DNA was extracted from a mixed population of females and males from different developmental stages.