text: Initially, the optical mapping system has been used to construct whole-genome restriction maps of bacteria, parasites, and fungi. It has also been used to scaffold and validate bacterial genomes. To serve as scaffolds for assembly, assembled sequence contigs can be scanned for restriction sites in silico using known sequence data and aligning them to the assembled genomic optical map. Commercial company, Opgen has provided optical mappings for microbial genomes. For larger eukaryotic genomes, only the David C. Schwartz lab (now at Madison-Wisconsin) has produced optical maps for mouse, human, rice, and maize.