High-Cot sequence analysis of the maize genome

Higher eukaryotic genomes, including those from plants, contain large amounts of repetitive DNA that complicate genome analysis. We have developed a technique based on DNA renaturation which normalizes repetitive DNA, and thereby allows a more efficient outcome for full genome shotgun sequencing. The data indicate that sequencing the unrenatured outcome of a Cot experiment, otherwise known as High-Cot DNA, enriches genic sequences by more than fourfold in maize, from 5% for a random library to more than 20% for a High-Cot library. Using this approach, we predict that gene discovery would be greater than 95% and that the number of sequencing runs required to sequence the full gene space in maize would be at least fourfold lower than that required for full-genome shotgun sequencing.