With the publication of the draft sequence of the C57BL/6J mouse genome in the 5 December issue of Nature, a powerful new resource has become available to the cancer-research community. “The entire biomedical research community can for the first time fully use this resource to tackle human diseases”, said Dr Jane Rogers of the Sanger Institute, UK (bbc.co.uk ).

The international sequencing consortium estimates that the 2.5 billion nucleotide genome contains 30,000 genes, 99% of which have a human homologue — this is the first time that the genomes of two mammals have been available for comparison (covered in the New York Times, 5 Dec 2002). Some 96% of the mouse genes lie in regions that are 'syntenic' with human chromosomes. In an accompanying News and Views article (Nature 420, 515–518 (2002)), Mark Boguski says “the conservation of synteny between mouse and human chromosomes will allow effective cross-reference of the location of any genetically mapped traits in the mouse with genes in the orthologous regions of the human genome. This will greatly accelerate the isolate of disease genes”.

The genome sequence will also make mice a better model for mutation-based screening assays. In a News and Views article in the January issue of Nature Genetics, Tim O'Brien and Rick Woychik discuss how the genome sequence will also help with the design and generation of targeted mutations produced by homologous recombination.

The sequencing effort has also led to the discovery of about 1,200 new genes that have human homologues, many of which are likely to have undiscovered cancer-related functions.