Resequencing ‘Eve’

Sarsani, V.K. et al. G3 (Bethesda) 9, 1795–1805 (2019)

The genome of the laboratory mouse was first sequenced in 2002; since then, that reference genome—based on C57BL/6J mice and referred to as GRCm38—has been the basis of many projects that rely on mouse genetics. It’s been updated over the years, but gaps remain. Sequencing technology has also changed, and today’s C57BL/6J mice are now 26 generations (or more) removed from the animals originally sampled to create that first reference.

Time for an update? Researchers at the Jackson Laboratory recently completed a de novo assembly, created with modern long and short read sequencing technologies as well optical mappings, of a mouse called Eve, the ‘mother’ of current C57BL/6J mice. With their resequenced genome, they note several areas of genetic variation that differ from the current reference and also annotate some new details about the frequently studied strain.