Pneumocystis carinii Sequencing Progress

Sequencing of the P. carinii genome is being accomplished by shotgun sequencing of amplified chromosome-specific libraries constructed by Lucigen, Inc. The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) DNA Core is performing the sequencing, while the University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine is assembling and analyzing the genome.

Our best measure of Genome Sequencing Progress is the number of Arachne-assembled contiguous stretches of genomic sequences (i.e. contigs), the combined length of those assembled contigs, the length of Arachne-assembled Super Contigs, and the length of those combined Arachne-assembled Super Contigs (including gaps). Alternatively, progress has been measured by the number of PHRAP-assembled contigs and the combined lengths of those contigs. We believe the Arachne assembly measurement better reflects sequencing progress because it provides more distinct contigs (i.e. less redundancy), fewer chimeric contig assemblies, and better portrays the genome in regard to its supercontig- and contig-mapping to the actual Pc genome.