BMC Genomics Research article BioMed Central Open Access A second generation radiation hybrid map to aid the assembly of the bovine genome sequence Oliver C Jann*1, Jan Aerts1, Michelle Jones1, Nicola Hastings1, Andy Law1, Stephanie McKay2, Elisa Marques2, Aparna Prasad2, Jody Yu2, Stephen S Moore2, Sandrine Floriot3, Marie-Françoise Mahé3, André Eggen3, Licia Silveri3,4, Riccardo Negrini4, Elisabetta Milanesi4, Paolo Ajmone- Marsan4, Alessio Valentini5, Cinzia Marchitelli5, Maria C Savarese5, Michal Janitz6, Ralf Herwig6, Steffen Hennig7, Chiara Gorni4,8, Erin E Connor9, Tad S Sonstegard9, Timothy Smith10, Cord Drögemüller11 and John L Williams1,8 Address: 1Division of Genetics & Genomics, Roslin Institute, Roslin, Midlothian, Edinburgh, EH25 9PS, UK, 2University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2P5, Canada, 3Laboratoire de Génétique Biochimique et Cytogénétique, INRA-CRJ, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France, 4Istituto di Zootecnica, Università Cattolica del S. Cuore via E. Parmense 84, 29100 Piacenza, Italy, 5Department of Animal Productions, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy, 6Department of Vertebrate Genomics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, 14195 Berlin, Germany, 7RZPD German Resource Center for Genome Research, 14059 Berlin, Germany, 8Parco Tecnologico Padano, via Einstein, Polo Universitario, Lodi 26900, Italy, 9USDA-ARS, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA, 10USDA-ARS U.S. Meat Animal Research Center P.O. Box 166 Clay Center, NE 68933-0166, USA and 11Institute for Animal Breeding and Genetics, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Bünteweg 17p, 30559 Hannover, Germany Email: Oliver C Jann* - Oliver.Jann@bbsrc.ac.uk; Jan Aerts - jan.aerts@bbsrc.ac.uk; Michelle Jones - michelle.jones@quintiles.com; Nicola Hastings - nicola.hastings@bbsrc.ac.uk; Andy Law - andy.law@bbsrc.ac.uk; Stephanie McKay - sdmckay@ualberta.ca; Elisa Marques - emarques@ualberta.ca; Aparna Prasad - aparnap@ualberta.ca; Jody Yu - jody.yu@ualberta.ca; Stephen S Moore - Stephen.moore@ualberta.ca; Sandrine Floriot - sandrine.floriot@cegetel.net; Marie-Françoise Mahé - marie- francoise.mahe@jouy.inra.fr; André Eggen - Andre.Eggen@jouy.inra.fr; Licia Silveri - licia.silveri@unicatt.it; Riccardo Negrini - riccardo.negrini@unicatt.it; Elisabetta Milanesi - elisabetta.milanesi@unicatt.it; Paolo Ajmone- Marsan - paolo.ajmone@unicatt.it; Alessio Valentini - alessio@unitus.it; Cinzia Marchitelli - marchite@unitus.it; Maria C Savarese - marilina@unitus.it; Michal Janitz - janitz@molgen.mpg.de; Ralf Herwig - herwig@molgen.mpg.de; Steffen Hennig - hennig@molgen.mpg.de; Chiara Gorni - Chiara.gorni@tecnoparco.org; Erin E Connor - econnor@anri.barc.usda.gov; Tad S Sonstegard - tads@anri.barc.usda.gov; Timothy Smith - smith@email.marc.usda.gov; Cord Drögemüller - cord.droegemueller@itz.unibe.ch; John L Williams - john.williams@tecnoparco.org * Corresponding author Published: 06 November 2006 BMC Genomics 2006, 7:283 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-7-283 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/7/283 Received: 04 August 2006 Accepted: 06 November 2006 © 2006 Jann et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Several approaches can be used to determine the order of loci on chromosomes and hence develop maps of the genome. However, all mapping approaches are prone to errors either arising from technical deficiencies or lack of statistical support to distinguish between alternative orders of loci. The accuracy of the genome maps could be improved, in principle, if information from different sources was combined to produce integrated maps. The publicly available bovine genomic sequence assembly with 6× coverage (Btau_2.0) is based on whole genome shotgun sequence data and limited mapping data however, it is recognised that this assembly is a draft that contains errors. Correcting the sequence assembly requires extensive additional mapping information to improve the reliability of the ordering of Page 1 of 15 (page number not for citation purposes)