By Frances Bishopp

The non-profit Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), which last week formally divorced its long-time collaborator, Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGS), five years and $38 million shy of their original 1992 deal, exercised its freedom with the public release of DNA sequence data from 11 organisms.

According to TIGR head Craig Venter, the move is "only an indication of things to come." More than 40 million base pairs of DNA sequence are contained in the genomes.

Describing the data release as "an historic event and the single greatest release of genomic information in history," Venter told BioWorld Today TIGR's new data also present the next challenge: "Who has the best ideas and best technology for taking this primary data forward and turning it into something?"

The newly released data, Venter said, is a "demonstration of TIGR's independent attitude, once free of HGS."

TIGR's data include genome sequences from five projects supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of Bethesda. Md. The microbes are responsible for deadly diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria, syphilis and cholera.

Also included is the second complete genome from the archaea, the third branch of life. The other two are prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The organism, Deinococcus radiodurans, is resistant to radiation. That project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

On June 25, 1997, Human Genome Sciences Inc., of Rockville, Md., and TIGR, also of Rockville, separated under a new agreement in which HGS stopped making payments to TIGR in return for relinquishing rights to future work done by TIGR. (See BioWorld Today, June 25, 1997, p.1.)

The new agreement ended the HGS and TIGR relationship which began in September 1992 in what would eventually become an $85 million deal.

The new agreement relieved HGS of a funding obligation to TIGR of more than $38 million over the next five and one-half years and allowed TIGR to immediately publish its work.

The five NIAID-supported sequencing projects at TIGR are:

* Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis) -- TIGR scientists are using a random shotgun sequencing strategy to reveal the DNA sequence of a clinical isolate of M. tuberculosis. Once completed, the predicted coding regions will be identified and roles assigned on the basis of sequence similarity searches. In addition, a variety of structural features will be identified and their organization studied in the context of the complete genome sequence.

* Treponema pallidum (syphilis) -- Scientists at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, in Houston, have shown that the T. pallidum genome is relatively small and consists of a single circular chromosome. These scientists in collaboration with TIGR have completed sequencing the genome. Currently they are verifying the sequence assembly and have begun annotating the information.

* Vibrio cholerae (cholera) -- The TIGR group expects to sequence the entire V. cholerae genome by 1998. Simultaneously, they will partially sequence the genome for a second cholera strain.

* Enterococcus faecalis (nosocomial infection) -- TIGR's team is sequencing the genome of a vancomycin-resistant strain of E. faecalis.

* Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) -- NIAID is supporting the sequencing of chromosome 2 through supplemental funding to TIGR and the Naval Medical Research Institute, of Bethesda.

The other five organisms for which TIGR released data were the Arabidopsis thaliana, funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture; Archaeoglobus fulgidus, funded by the Department of Energy; Helicobacter pylori, funded by TIGR; Neisseria meningitidis, funded by TIGR; and Thermotoga maritima, funded by the Department of Energy.

Total funding for the five NIAID projects is between $5 million and $10 million per year.

Venter anticipates a paper on H. Pylori will be published in Nature within a month or so.

"We have been funded for the biggest killers in the world," Venter said, "malaria, tuberculosis and cholera and we have released data on completed or nearly completed genomes on all three of those." *