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The genome project

We are sequencing the genome of Lumbricus rubellus. This will be the first oligochaete annelid genome to be sequenced. The genome sequence will reveal the 'parts list' for this important species, and help us to put together maps of how the worm grows, eats, and reproduces, and how it resists exposures to potentially toxic soil contamination.

To do this we are using the resources, instrumentation and expertise of the GenePool, the University of Edinburgh Genomics Facility.

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The transcriptome project

The genome sequencing project builds on the successful Lumbricus rubellus Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) transcriptome project. ESTs are a way of sampling the expressed genes of a species, and we, as part of The EcoWorm Consortium gained funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) generate of over 20,000 ESTs. Using a combination of informatics tools these sequences have been analysed and used to build a relational sequence database - LumbriBASE - that can be queried by both sequence similarity and annotation.

We have added ESTs from additional annelid species to LumbriBASE to make cross-comparison between species easier.