Ovis aries Photo courtesy USDA (Agricultural Research Service)

The Feb. 2010 Ovis aries draft assembly (NCBI project 10709, GCA_000005525.1) was produced by the International Sheep Genomics Consortium (ISGC) sequencing center. The mitochondrial genome was sequenced by Justus-Liebig-University.

### Sample position queries

A genome position can be specified by the accession number of a sequenced genomic region, an mRNA or EST, a chromosomal coordinate range, or keywords from the GenBank description of an mRNA. The following list shows examples of valid position queries for the Sheep genome. See the User's Guide for more information.

Request: |  | Genome Browser Response:
--- | --- | ---
chr26 |  | Displays all of chromosome 26
chr3:1-1000000 |  | Displays first million bases of chr 3
chr3:1000000+2000 |  | Displays a region of chr 3 that spans 2000 bases, starting with position 1000000
BX950328 |  | Displays region of mRNA with GenBank accession number BX950328
DY493213 |  | Displays region of EST with GenBank accession DY493213 on chr 19
pseudogene mRNA |  | Lists transcribed pseudogenes, but not cDNAs
homeobox caudal |  | Lists mRNAs for caudal homeobox genes
zinc finger |  | Lists many zinc finger mRNAs
kruppel zinc finger |  | Lists only kruppel-like zinc fingers
zhang |  | Lists mRNAs deposited by scientist named Zhang
Taguchi,T. |  | Lists mRNAs deposited by co-author T. Taguchi
Use this last format for author queries. Although GenBank requires the search format Taguchi T, internally it uses the format Taguchi,T..

### Assembly details

There are 27 chromosomes: chr1 - chr26, chrX, plus the mitochondrial sequence chrM from genbank accession NC_001941, for a total sequence length of 2,860,512,983 bases. There are 1,659,241,706 'N' bases in gaps, leaving 1,201,271,277 ACGT bases. The genome has been sequenced using 454 FLX sequencing to 3X coverage (DNA derived from six female sheep each sequenced with 0.5X coverage). Contigs were assembled based on alignment to the bovine genome and ordered into ovine chromosomes using BAC-end sequences and the virtual sheep genome. See also: International Sheep Genomics Consortium Genome Sequencing Project description.

Bulk downloads of the sequence and annotation data are available via the Genome Browser FTP server or the Downloads page. The Sheep browser annotation tracks were generated by UCSC and collaborators worldwide. See the Credits page for a detailed list of the organizations and individuals who contributed to the success of this release.