The finished DNA sequence and accompanying analysis of human chromosome 6 has been published in today’s edition of
Nature. It is the seventh chromosome to be fully sequenced and annotated to date, and the largest, representing nearly 6% of the human genome. The paper from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge
[Mungall AJ et al. (2003) Nature 425, 805-811] reports the identification of 1577 genes, including many of medical importance. The MHC (major histocompatibility complex) region on the chromosome was sequenced some years ago, because of its critical role in immunity and disease, but many genes outside this region have also been associated with diseases including schizophrenia, cancer and heart disease. The Sanger team used genome sequences now available for a number of other species (mouse, rat, zebrafish and two species of pufferfish, Fugu and Tetraodon) to perform comparative sequence analysis in order to improve the accuracy of gene identification. The full analysis is available from the
vertebrate genome annotation (VEGA) database.