Nile Tilapia: Whole genome sequencing

Non-mammalian animals can provide great insight into the principles of development and evolution, which in turn teaches us about human biology and disease. The Broad Institute is generating a high quality draft from a Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus. The Nile tilapia is 10-15 million years diverged from the East African lake cichlids, and provides a good outgroup for the study of the remarkable speciation among the cichlids in those lakes. In addition, the Broad is producing high quality drafts of 4 additional cichlid species representing a broad cross-section of the East African Lake lineages:  Astatotilapia burtoni, Malawi (Maylandia) zebra, Pundamila nyererei and Neolamprologus brichardi. 

A large number of BAC end sequences (110,880) have been generated at Genoscope. The BAC end sequences have been comparatively mapped in silico by Kocher's lab to stickleback genome sequence assembly. Working with Co-Factor Genomics, Kocher's lab is also generating the whole genome sequences of the tilapia genome using the next generation sequencing. A total of 116,889 ESTs have been generated in Kocher's lab from 17 normalized libraries. These ESTs were assembled into 24,363 contigs

These genomic resources will not only help researchers address important questions about vertebrate evolution, but will also enable the study of behavior, immunology, and toxicology. They will also contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the tilapia as an important food source in over 100 countries and one of the primary sources of protein in the developing world.