Since the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003,
research efforts have been aimed at analyzing the functions of
various sequences in the genome, using both experimental and
computational strategies. The June issue of Genome Research
(www.genome.org) is devoted to The ENCODE (ENCyclopedia Of DNA
Elements) Project, whose goal is to characterize all functional
elements in the human genome. Genome Research’s ENCODE issue
includes 25 research papers, which report on the validation of
the main results of the pilot project and are essential the
community as they scale up to cataloguing functional elements in
the whole genome. In addition, the issue also contains
commentary and perspectives on how our views of the genome have
changed as a result of the ENCODE investigations. The major
findings span the areas of chromatin and replication, gene
transcription and regulation, and evolutionary constraint, some
of which are highlighted below. The entire issue will be freely
available online on June 14 to coordinat