Primate Sequencing Project

The long-term goal of non-human primate genome sequencing has been to annotate the genetic differences that have emerged over the last 60-70 million years of primate evolution. Embedded in these differences are the changes that have shaped evolutionary divergence and produced our unique human traits. Because differences rather than conserved sequences represent the major findings, high quality sequence is required. With the high quality data it will be possible to detect subtle changes in the primary structure of genes, which is important since even single amino acid differences can be key contributors to morphological differences. Similarly the important changes in the sequence of gene regulatory regions may involve only small numbers of DNA bases. Additionally, the important differences can involve large-scale genome rearrangements, including duplications and other structural rearrangements.