Scientists Decode Locust Genome

Researchers from Beijing Genome Institute (BGI), Chinese Academy of Sciences' (CAS) Institute of Zoology, other institutes have successfully decoded the whole genome sequence of Locusta migratoria (locust)-the most widespread locust species. The yielded genome is remarkably big- at 6.5 gigabytes, which is the largest animal genome sequenced so far. The latest study has been published online in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers have decoded the genome using next-generation sequencing technology, totally yielding 721Gb of data, which covered 114 times that of the 6.3Gb locust genome size. They annotated and predicted about 17,307 gene models, and identified over 2,639 repeat gene families. Moreover, they discovered that the top ten repeat families only represented 10% of the total genome sequences, suggesting that there were no dominant families in the L. migratoria genome.

See BGI's news release at http://www.genomics.cn/en/news/show_news?nid=99886. The full journal article is available at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140114/ncomms3957/full/ncomms3957.html.