NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The International Cooperation to Sequence the Atlantic Salmon Genome (ICSASG) has awarded the Phase II contract for next-generation sequencing and analysis of the Atlantic salmon genome to the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md.
The effort is expected to generate a high-quality resource for the management of wild salmon stocks and the salmon aquaculture industry, as well as provide a reference genome for work with other salmonids, according to ICSASG. JCVI will integrate next-generation sequencing and Sanger sequencing data and conduct comparative genomics.
"The salmon genome is large and contains repetitive sequences which make it a more difficult genome sequence to assemble," Jason Miller, an associate professor at JCVI, said in a statement. "Working with ICSASG, we will complement the Phase I data with next-generation sequence data to provide the most complete salmon genome possible."
Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.
ICSASG began in 2009 as a partnership between the Research Council of Norway, the Norwegian Fishery and Aquaculture Industry Research Fund, Genome British Columbia, and the Chilean Economic Development Agency and its innovation agency InnovaChile.
The partners provided Beckman Coulter Genomics with a $6 million contract to conduct the first phase of the project, which included using Sanger sequencing to create a ~4 fold coverage draft of the fish's genome.
Awarding of the contract to JCVI comes a year after ICSASG had put out a call for proposals to conduct the second phase of the project.