These existing clones and marker loci provide an initial framework from which an expanded physical map

A White Paper Requesting BAC Library Construction: Drosophila as a Model for Comparative Genomics Submitted by Therese Ann Markow Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, BSW 310 University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Office: (520) 621 3323 Email: tmarkow@arl.arizona.edu Bryant F. McAllister Dept. Biological Sciences, 138 BB University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 Office (319)335-2604 Email: bryant-mcallister@uiowa.edu Thomas Kaufman Dept. of Biology Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 Office (812) 855-3033 kaufman@bio.indiana.edu On behalf of the Tucson Drosophila Species Stock Center 1 Introduction Genome sequences from a wide variety of eukaryotes are accumulating at an astounding pace and the informatics and research communities are facing a diversity of problems annotating these genomes and validating the functional roles of the annotated sequences. For example, most predicted coding sequences are not associated with any known function (Adams et al. 2000). For those well-defined genes that do have known biological functions, annotation of sequences important for cis-regulation is still in its infancy (Ohler et al. 2002). Furthermore, networks of gene interactions are even more poorly understood (Halfon & Michelson 2002). One recognized mechanism for genome-wide functional annotation and validation is the use of cross-species comparative analyses (Bergman et al., 2003; Boffelli et al. 2003). ...