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Random Shotgun Fire Downloaded from genome.cshlp.org on September 28, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press EDITORIAL Random Shotgun Fire Craig Venter’s and Perkin-Elmer’s May 9th announce- lengths. The sequencing machine will be accompanied ment of a new joint venture to complete the sequence by an automated workstation that does colony picking, of the human genome in just 3 years set off a furor extraction, PCR, and sequencing reactions. The com- among the scientific community. The uproar, how- pany is committed to publicly releasing data on a quar- ever, was unsurprising given that the earliest newspa- terly basis on contigs greater than 2 kb, though the per articles presented the plan as if it were a fait accom- exact details for this release are still under discussion. pli and accused the publicly funded Human Genome The general business plan of the company includes the Project of being a ‘‘waste’’ of money. The announce- intention to patent between 100 and 300 interesting ment, made just prior to the Genome Mapping, Se- gene systems. Additionally, they plan to position quencing, and Biology Meeting, held May 13–17 at themselves as a supplier of a sequence database and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, was discussed, at least analysis tools. Finally, they intend to exploit the dis- briefly, at the sequencing center director’s meeting covered single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), that preceded the CSHL meeting, in a very well- probably through a new genotyping service. With attended session during the CSHL meeting, and in nu- their approach, they claim they can sequence the hu- merous speculative debates over meals and beers man genome in just 3 years at a cost of roughly $200 among attending scientists. million. The Facts Opinion, Scientific or Otherwise The publicly funded projects are generally sequencing From an unbiased view, the two plans seem to be sim- the human genome by a strategy that might be called ply two different methods to obtain genomic informa- map and then shotgun. Physical maps of human chro- tion. So why all the excitement? The answer seems to mosomes are constructed, typically first with YACs be the apparent attack on the publicly funded projects (yeast artificial chromosomes) and then with BACs that accompanied the announcement. Take, for ex- (bacterial) or PACs (P1). A ‘‘minimal tiling path’’ of ample, the surprisingly unbalanced news article in The BACs/PACs that overlaps by the least amount is then New York Times (May 11, 1998) that presented the Ven- selected and sequenced by a shotgun approach. All se- ter/Perkin-Elmer proposal as if the end point had al- quence data, both unfinished assembled sequence and ready been achieved and that publicly funded project completely finished clones, are released daily as agreed coordinators had conceded defeat. The article stated upon at the international sequence strategy meeting, that ‘‘Recognizing the credibility of the new venture by held each of the last 3 years in Bermuda. The complete Dr. Venter and Perkin-Elmer, N.I.H. officials [un- human sequence is anticipated in 2005, ending a 15- named] are preparing to persuade Congress to con- year project, with the last sequencing phase costing tinue funding the genome project but to switch the roughly $1 billion. focus from getting the sequence to the enormous task- The basic plan of the Venter/Perkin-Elmer venture ing of interpreting it.’’ The article goes on to say that for sequencing the human genome is to use a whole- ‘‘Having forfeited the grand prize of the human ge- genome shotgun sequencing approach. This means se- nome sequence, they [Congress] should now be quencing random inserts from completely unmapped equally happy with the glory of paying for similar re- clones from libraries containing fragmented DNA from search in mice.’’ Given that in press conferences, in the whole human genome. The new company will per- later newspaper articles, and at the CSHL Genome form at least 108 sequence reads (a 10-fold redun- Meeting, officials at the NIH, specifically Harold Var- dancy—or what some might call a ‘‘deep shotgun’’). mus and Francis Collins, made it clear that the news of They plan to do both forward and reverse reads from the death of the U.S. publicly funded Human Genome each PCR-prepared insert and will use libraries from Project was greatly exaggerated, The New York Times different individuals, allowing them to identify poly- article appears to be sloppy news coverage at best and morphisms during their analysis. Sequence assembly horribly biased at worst. will be done incrementally using BAC-end sequence, The international commitment to publicly sup- ESTs, and STSs to link and position evolving sequence. port the Human Genome Project is equally strong. The The cornerstone of this initiative is a new 96-capillary Wellcome Trust in the UK immediately announced sequencing instrument currently in development at they were doubling their funding for human genome Applied Biosystems, Inc. (ABI). About 230 instruments sequencing, adding another £110 million, and making are expected to be in full operation at the new com- it possible for the UK Human Genome Project to pro- pany by April 1999. The number of runs that can be duce one-third of the human sequence. Discussion of a accomplished in a day on one of these machines is Wellcome Trust funding increase had been long under projected to be about 8–12. The separation matrix is way and approved; however, the Trust felt it important the same as that currently in use in the ABI 310 se- in light of the Venter/Perkin-Elmer announcement quencer, and it should produce 500- to 600-base read that swift notification be made to make it clear that 8:567–568 ©1998 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press ISSN 1054-9803/98 $5.00; www.genome.org GENOME RESEARCH 567 Downloaded from genome.cshlp.org on September 28, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press GOODMAN support for the Human Genome Project by public lic availability of this information—an issue hotly de- funding agencies remained extremely strong. bated in the newspapers, and rightly so, given its po- tential impact on the public’s general welfare. Venter and Perkin-Elmer make it clear that they only plan to The Concerns patent a small number of gene systems, but the effect of patenting any DNA sequence is uncertain, nor is it The main concern is that public perception (or misper- known what would ultimately hold them to patenting ception) will result in loss of public funding for the only a small number. Certainly the Wellcome Trust Human Genome Project, and this particular concern is feels there is reason for concern; Michael Morgan an- why public airing of scientific information absolutely nounced at the Genome Meeting that the Trust is very requires increased care to make clear to the public a carefully investigating gene patenting legalities and is project’s true status, its overall aims, and its drawbacks. preparing, if they believe it necessary, to contest any The final outcome of the Venter/Perkin-Elmer project gene patents on the public’s behalf. is far from certain, and statements indicating that pub- licly funded projects are now a waste are irresponsible. At this stage, no good scientist would say, espe- Conclusions cially given that there is no hard evidence whatsoever (not even a representative model has been tested to At this stage, concerns about the Venter/Perkin-Elmer provide insight about problems or biases in a whole- project—whether the project can be completed as genome shotgun for a repeat-rich genome), how suc- stated, what the final product’s form will be, and what cessful or how high the quality—as an assembled se- impact privately owned human genome information quence—the proposed Venter/Perkin-Elmer venture would have—remain unresolved; thus, reduction in will be. The human sequence is unlike any other ge- public funding would be extraordinarily premature. Fi- nome that has been done in a whole-genome shotgun nally, it should be noted that although there is clear fashion. The sheer number and length of repeat re- concern over the effect on public funding and on the gions may make the assembly task next to impossible. final form of the sequence to come from the Venter/ Phil Green commented at the Genome Meeting that in Perkin-Elmer venture, it was equally clear at the CSHL a whole-genome shotgun, bridging repeat regions Genome Meeting that numerous scientists are excited longer than 5–10kb (e.g., LINEs and clusters of Alus) about the potential new information source and feel it would often fail. Green estimated that following as- will be a useful partner to the public projects. Likewise, sembly of whole-genome shotgun data, the average they embraced the challenge of working toward pro- contiguous sequence length would probably be only viding the entire genome sequence, in complete order 40–50 kb. This should provide partial gene and SNP and orientation, in a timely manner and hopefully identification data, but little more. Many contigs working in concert with Venter and Perkin-Elmer as would be only a few kb or less in size and would lack well as with others. Privately and publicly funded identifiable markers (BAC ends or ESTs), with the result projects have been working together so far, with both that they would be entirely unpositioned orphans. profiting from it. They should continue to do so. Genes extending over several 100 kb or more (of which One last point, to put things in perspective, espe- there are a great many in the A+T rich parts of the cially given that many newspaper reporters wrote their genome) would almost certainly not be obtained in stories as if Venter or the NIH or The Wellcome Trust— intact form.
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