The availability of the rat genome sequence, and detailed three-way comparison of the rat, mouse and human genomes, is revealing a great deal about mammalian genome evolution. Together with recent developments in cloning technologies, this heralds an important phase in rat research. reports deposited research Historically, the rat has been the animal model of choice for research in key areas that inform human medicine, such as cardiovascular biology, neurobiology and nutrition. A | Minireview Insights from the rat genome sequence Linda J Mullins and John J Mullins Address Molecular Physiology Laboratory Wilkie Building Teviot Place University of Edinburgh Medical School Edinburgh EH8 9AG UK. Correspondence John J Mullins. E-mail Published 30 April 2004 Genome Biology 2004 5 221 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http 2004 5 5 221 2004 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract The availability of the rat genome sequence and detailed three-way comparison of the rat mouse and human genomes is revealing a great deal about mammalian genome evolution. Together with recent developments in cloning technologies this heralds an important phase in rat research. Historically the rat has been the animal model of choice for research in key areas that inform human medicine such as cardiovascular biology neurobiology and nutrition. A huge body of knowledge has accumulated and over 230 disease models have been generated through selective breeding. The rat is also an indispensable tool in drug development both for the assessment of therapeutic efficacy and for toxicity trials. The mouse has largely usurped the rat as the species of choice in biomedical research in general however because of its size fecundity and ease of genetic manipulation - especially with the development of gene knock-out technology. After human the mouse was the obvious next choice for whole-genome sequencing and there was a naive belief that the rat genome sequence would prove to be redundant given the morphological and evolutionary similarity between the rat and the mouse. The recent publication in Nature of an initial rat genomesequence analysis 1 has gone a long way to silence doubters and to inspire the rat research community. Using a combination of random whole-genome shotgun sequencing and a bacterial artificial chromosome BAC contig-building approach a high-quality draft of the Brown Norway rat sequence .
