What is the Genetic Annotation Initative(GAI)?
The Genetic Annotation Initative extends the utility of Cancer Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP) resources. More specifically it “annotates” the genes being discovered as part of CGAP with variation information so that they are of utility in “genetic” studies. How is the GAI finding genetic variation? The GAI is using multiple approaches to find variation in genes. In one component it is performing sequencing (actually resequencing) of genes that are of interest to cancer researchers. It is called resequencing because one sequences the same region multiple times in different individuals starting from a known sequence. The GAI is also using “data mining” to find variation in genes. There exists in the public domain more than a million gene transcripts (ESTs or Expressed Sequence Tags). These tags come from sequencing different individuals. The differences present in these individuals’ genes is captured in these ESTs. The GAI has developed software tools to find these differences, and separa
