EXCERPT

The genome of the Chinese hamster is composed of eleven pairs of chromosomes. Decoding such a large genome calls for the generation of large datasets that then have to be processed with bioinformatics. To facilitate the resulting data analysis, the researchers in Bielefeld and their colleagues in this project applied a completely new procedure that sorts the single chromosomes of the genome. The sequencing of the hamster chromosomes was performed by Dr. Karina Brinkrolf at CeBiTec. More than 1.4 billion short DNA sequences were generated with the help of modern instruments for next-generation sequencing.

"The major challenge in this project was subsequently piecing these short DNA sequences together to form single total sequences of chromosomes", explains the head of the project Professor Alfred Pühler. This work can only be done with powerful computers. "We had to complete the new CeBiTec computer cluster and apply new software before we could determine the genome sequence", says the bioinformatics expert Dr. Alexander Goesmann who also worked on the project. "By decoding the hamster genome sequence", notes Goesmann, "bioinformatics at Bielefeld University has broken new ground." With approximately 2.3 billion bases, the magnitude of the genome sequence of the Chinese hamster is comparable to that of the human genome.

SOURCE

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130821094823.htm

ARTICLE

Brinkrolf, K. et al. 2013. Chinese hamster genome sequenced from sorted chromosomes. Nature Biotechnology 31(8):694 DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2645