Published in

Nature Research, Nature, 6982(428), p. 493-521, 2004

DOI: 10.1038/nature02426

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Genome sequence of the Brown Norway rat yields insights into mammalian evolution

Journal article published in 2004 by Pieter J. de Jong, Baoli Zhu, Natasja Wye, Shaying Zhao, Kim C. Worley, Zhengdong Zhang, Evgeny Zdobnov, Janet M. Young, Heming Xing, J. Q. Wu, Heike Zimdahl, Shan Yang, Yi Zhang, Von Bing Yap, Geoffrey Okwuonu and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The laboratory rat (Rattus norvegicus) is an indispensable tool in experimental medicine and drug development, having made inestimable contributions to human health. We report here the genome sequence of the Brown Norway (BN) rat strain. The sequence represents a high-quality 'draft' covering over 90% of the genome. The BN rat sequence is the third complete mammalian genome to be deciphered, and three-way comparisons with the human and mouse genomes resolve details of mammalian evolution. This first comprehensive analysis includes genes and proteins and their relation to human disease, repeated sequences, comparative genome-wide studies of mammalian orthologous chromosomal regions and rearrangement breakpoints, reconstruction of ancestral karyotypes and the events leading to existing species, rates of variation, and lineage-specific and lineage-independent evolutionary events such as expansion of gene families, orthology relations and protein evolution.