1977 - First viral genome
1981 - First eukaryotic organellar genome
Human mitochondrial genome (Anderson et al., 1981)
16,571 bp (16.6 kb), 13 proteins, 2 rRNAs, 22 tRNAs.
1986 - First chloroplast genomes
Nicotiana tabacum (Shinozaki et al., 1986) and Oryza sativa (Ohyama et al., 1986) were reported in rapid succession.
1992 - First eukaryotic chromosome
Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome III (Oliver et al., 1992).
315 kb, with 182 ORFs, with only 37 corresponding to to previously known genes, and 29 with similarity to genes known from other organisms.
1995 - Genomics arrives
First complete genome of a bacterium
Mycoplasma genitalium
First complete genome of a free living organism
Haemophilus influenzae Rd.
1996 - First genomes from the Archaea
Methanococcus jannaschii
1996 - First eukaryotic genome
Saccharomyces cervisiae
1997 et seq. - many additional microbial genomes
1998 - First genome of a multicellular organism
Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode
1999 - Human chromosome 22
2000 - Drosophila melanogaster (an insect), Arabidopsis thaliana (a plant), continuing microbial sequencing, human chromosome 21
2001 - Draft sequence of the human genome
Publicly funded human genome project used minimum tiling BACs
Celera used the random clone approach
2002 - Large scale sequencing of eukaryotic, bacterial, and archaeal genomes, continuing to the present.
Highlights from 2002 include Anopheles gambiae, Plasmodium falciparum, Schizosaccaromyces pombe.
2006 - Eukarotic genomes available:
Pan troglodytes, Apis mellifera, Rattus norvegicus, Macaca mulatta, Mus musculus, Tribolium castaneum (the red flour beetle), Dictyostelium discoideum, Bos taurus, Canis familiaris (several different efforts), Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, Danio rerio (zebrafish), Gallus gallus, Xenopus tropicalis, pig, rabbit, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (a green alga), Aspergillus niger (bread mold), Ciona intestinalis (an ascidian), Fugu (Takifugu) rubripes (pufferfish), Laccaria bicolor (a fungus), Nectria haematococca (a fungus), Nematostella vectensis, Ostreococcus lucimarinus, Ostreococcus tauri, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Phytophthora sojae, Pichia stipitis (a yeast), Populus trichocarpa, Thalassiosira pseudonana, Trichoderma reesei, and no doubt several more.
Eukarya
Arranged in chromosomes
Not typically in operons
Regulatory sequences may be scattered around genome
Many species have abundant introns
Often two or more genomes present
Mitochondria
Endosymbiotic proteobacterium
Plastids (Chloroplasts)
Endosymbiotic cyanobacterium
Nonmendelian inheritance
Bacterial genome structure
Reduced genome size
Mechanisms of genome reduction
Gene loss
Gene transfer
Gene substitution
Archaea
Prokaryotic
Genomes typically circular
Few introns
Bacteria
Prokaryotic
Genomes typically circular
Few Introns
Distinctive promoter structure
Genes often in operons of functionally related genes
Chimerism
New information is emerging from genomic studies
Eukaryotes
Archaea and Bacteria