Overview
The NIH Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) program is a multi-institutional effort to
identify and sequence cDNA clones containing a full-length open reading frame (FL-ORF)
for human, mouse, and rat genes. To date, the MGC has produced over
630
cDNA libraries derived from human tissue and cell lines,
as well as mouse and rat tissues.
The MGC has sequenced and verified the complete FL-ORFs for a non-redundant
set of 17,526 human, 17,496 mouse, and 6,457 rat genes.
MGC infrastrucure and protocols are also being applied to two other gene collection projects:
- Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis (XGC)
- Danio rerio (ZGC)
The Bovine Gene Collection (BGC) is a Genome Canada initiative that supports the production of cDNA
libraries, clones and sequences to provide a complete set of full-length (open reading frame)
sequences and cDNA clones of expressed genes for the cow. The MGC infrastructure provides
materials distribution. Details about this project can be found at
http://www.genomebc.ca/GBCResearch/researchProjectsDetails.asp?id=i1p01.
Strategy
- Clone generation:
- From the inception of the MGC, 5' expressed-sequence tags (ESTs)
were generated from cDNA libraries and analyzed to identify candidate clones for human, mouse and rat
that might contain complete ORFs.
(See references 1, 4, and 5)
- Since 2004, PCR generation and in vitro synthesis of human and mouse cDNAs have been
performed to isolate genes missing from the MGC.
(See references 2 and 3)
- All clones are subjected to high accuracy full-insert sequencing and
assessed for complete ORFs.
- Candidate clones for genes
are clones that
have been identified as potentially complete ORFs and are awaiting full-insert
sequencing.
- All MGC sequences are deposited in GenBank and available without restriction.
- The cDNA clones generated by the MGC are available through the IMAGE clone
distribution network
(See Where to Buy)
and are fully accessible to the community.