Genome projects are
scientific endeavours that ultimately aim to determine the complete
genome sequence of an
organism (be it an
animal, a
plant, a
fungus, a
bacterium, an
archaean, a
protist or a
virus) and to annotate protein-coding
genes and other important genome-encoded features. The genome sequence of an organism includes the collective
DNA sequences of each
chromosome in the organism. For a
bacterium containing a single chromosome, a genome project will aim to map the sequence of that chromosome. For the human species, whose genome includes 22 pairs of
autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes, a complete genome sequence will involve 46 separate chromosome sequences.