Read the given passage and answer the following questions:
In the preceding sections you have learnt that it is the sequence of bases in DNA that determines the genetic information of a given organism. In other words, genetic make-up of an organism or an individual lies in the DNA sequences. If two individuals differ, then their DNA sequences should also be different, at least at some places. These assumptions led to the quest of finding out the complete DNA sequence of human genome. With the establishment of genetic engineering techniques where it was possible to isolate and clone any piece of DNA and availability of simple and fast techniques for determining DNA sequences, a very ambitious project of sequencing human genome was launched in the year 1990. Some of the important goals of HGP were as follows: (i) Identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA; (ii) Determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA; (iiii) Store this information in databases; (iv) Improve tools for data analysis; (v) Transfer related technologies to other sectors, such as industries; (vi) Address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may arise from the project. The Human Genome Project was a 13-year project coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institute of Health. During the early years of the HGP, the Wellcome Trust (U.K.) became a major partner; additional contributions came from Japan, France, Germany, China and others. The project was completed in 2003.
In the HGP, assigning different regions in the sequenced genome with functions is referred to as:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Sequence Annotation
The HGP followed two approaches. The first looked only for the genes that are expressed as RNA; these are the Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs). The second sequenced the whole genome, coding and non-coding parts alike, and only afterwards worked out what each region does. This step of giving functions to the regions of a sequence is called Sequence Annotation. Bioinformatics is the wider field of storing and analysing such data with computers, and DNA fingerprinting compares repetitive DNA of different people; neither is the name of this step.
NCERT Extract:
Human Genome Project – “… Methodologies : The methods involved two major approaches. One approach focused on identifying all the genes that are expressed as RNA (referred to as Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs). The other took the blind approach of simply sequencing the whole set of genome that contained all the coding and non-coding sequence, and later assigning different regions in the sequence with functions (a term referred to as Sequence Annotation).”