11 – Integrated Genome Mapping by Hybridization Techniques

This chapter discusses integrated genome mapping by hybridization techniques. Hybridization techniques provide the means for an efficient physical mapping. High-coverage clone libraries are generated and stored. It is found that whole libraries become accessible, with the clones nevertheless individually identifiable and easily retrievable. Work can be done in many places simultaneously on the same material and redundancies in library generation and characterization are much avoided. Due to the common nature of the information obtained, hybridization results are instantly correlated and easily interrelated. It is found that particularly, a combination of long-range and short-distance mapping considerably accelerates an ordering process and especially, the gap closing in both systems is simplified. In an apparent extension to the mere physical mapping, cDNA and exonic libraries can be used as probe sources, thus directly combining the ordering of the genomic DNA with the localization of transcribed sequences. It is suggested that by a simultaneous hybridization to the genomic and back to the transcriptional libraries, such experiments would additionally produce results on sequence homologies between transcribed sequences.