Vol. 10, Issue 9, 1421-1429, September 2000

METHODS
Optical Mapping of BAC Clones from the Human Y Chromosome DAZ Locus

¹ W.M. Keck Laboratory for Biomolecular Imaging, Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA; ² Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, Department of Computer Science, New York, New York 10012, USA; ³ Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA; ⁴ Departments of Genetics and Chemistry, UW-Biotechnology Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

The accurate mapping of clones derived from genomic regions containing complex arrangements of repeated elements presents special problems for DNA sequencers. Recent advances in the automation of optical mapping have enabled us to map a set of 16 BAC clones derived from the DAZ locus of the human Y chromosome long arm, a locus in which the entire DAZ gene as well as subsections within the gene copies have been duplicated. High-resolution optical mapping employing seven enzymes places these clones into two contigs representing four distinct copies of the DAZ gene and highlights a number of differences between individual copies of DAZ.