Sequence analysis of genes and genomes

A major step towards understanding of the genetic basis of an organism is the complete sequence determination of all genes in its genome. The development of powerful techniques for DNA sequencing has enabled sequencing of large amounts of gene fragments and even complete genomes. Important new techniques for physical mapping, DNA sequencing and sequence analysis have been developed. To increase the throughput, automated procedures for sample preparation and new software for sequence analysis have been applied. This review describes the development of new sequencing methods and the optimisation of sequencing strategies for whole genome and cDNA analysis, as well as discusses issues regarding sequence analysis and annotation.