C. elegans ORFeome version 1.1

C. elegans has proved invaluable as a worldwide model system for studies in developmental genetics and neurobiology. In a collaborative effort based at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Dr Marc Vidal and colleagues (http://vidal.dfci.harvard.edu/) have cloned a first version (version 1.1) of all predicted protein-coding open reading frames (ORFs), or the "ORFeome" of Caenorhabditis elegans. Their effort has resulted in the generation of over 12,000 clones (ORFeome 1.1), of which ~4,000 correspond to genes that have remained untouched by any cDNA or expressed sequence tag (EST).

These clones have been produced using InVitrogen Gateway™ recombinational vector system pDONR201. As a starting point, the researchers designed 19,000 primer pairs by computational methods, based on gene predictions from one of first drafts of the worm genome annotation made public in 1999. Gene-specific primer pairs would amplify all 'splice variants' between the two primers designed for any gene. Pools of ~50-1,000 transformants for each set of amplification products were partially sequenced to produce OSTs (ORF sequence tags). This confirmed gene identity and permitted identification of pools where at least one processed mRNA was represented. All the data from this project has been made available in WorfDB, which integrates with other mapping data ( http://worfdb.dfci.harvard.edu/ ). There is also a " C elegans ORF Finder" tool available which allows you to find the location of the clone in the 96-well plates.

Geneservice Ltd offers, for research purposes only, over 10,500 ORF pools from this collection which can be obtained as individual pooled clones from a single well, a subset of pools or the complete set of 114 plates (96-well format).

We can also make subsets of your chosen clones from the collection. Please contact biohelp to discuss your requirements.