Why Sequence Human Chromosome 16?
JGI decoded the sequence of human chromosome 16 as part of its work for the Human Genome Project. The Human Genome Project was begun to determine the complete sequence of the 3 billion bases of the human genome, identify all the genes, and make them accessible for further biological study.
A focus of early studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory, chromosome 16 is highly enriched for segmental sequence duplications--regions that have been copied to other places within the chromosome, or copied to other chromosomes. Excluding the Y sex chromosome, chromosome 16 has the most segmental duplications in the human genome. At 88.7 Mb, it has 880 identified genes. It features genes implicated in the development of breast and prostate cancer, Crohn's disease, and adult polycystic kidney disease, which affects an estimated five million people worldwide. Half the affected people require dialysis or kidney transplant.
Genome Portal site: Homo sapiens chromosome 16
