Human DNA Contamination Seen in Genome Databases

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17genome.html?_r=1&ref=science

Kendall Roberson

Around twenty percent of the nonhuman genomes found in computer databases have been linked to contaminated human DNA, which is said to be found from the researchers who prepared the samples of the nonhuman genomes. The crop plants and model organisms, which are used in many research laboratories, are the main species affected by the immortal full set of chromosomes. The issue with this is the pollution in the genomes could possibly deceive researchers who make the assumption that and genome sequence in a leading databank is very accurate. Rachel O'Neill, a researcher from the University of Connecticut, says, "Contamination of human samples by other human DNA is very hard to distinguish from normal variation, and could lead to erroneous medical decisions." Dr. David Lipman, director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, said, "We don't see the contamination she's taking about," referring to O'Neill. O"Neill said she just wanted to alert people of possible contamination; she never meant to call on the curators of national databases to do anything.

I agree with the idea of computers looking for genome sequences. Even though twenty percent of the nonhuman genomes are linked to the researchers, that doesn't mean the other eighty percent are contaminated. The computers filtering out the cross-contamination is a lot easier than the older styles of filtering out the cross-contamination of nonhuman genomes. I agree with what Rachel O'Neill said. She didn't want other people to worry, criticize or fix the misleading data, she just wanted people to be aware of what a possibility is of the contamination. Obviously Dr. Lipman is going to have different results than O'Neill, but that doesn't mean she is wrong. His evidence could be part of the eighty percent that isn't affected by the contaminated genomes. I think the computer screening for contamination is a good thing, and it should still be done until something better comes along.