The ORFeome Collaboration (OC) was formed to meet the need of the research community for an unrestricted source of fully sequence-validated full-ORF human and mouse cDNA clones in a format allowing easy transfer of the ORF sequences into virtually any type of expression vector. The goal is to provide such clones for each currently defined human gene in formats with and without stop codon, permitting the synthesis of C-terminal as well as N-terminal fusion proteins. The clones are derived from fully sequenced Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) full-length cDNAs, from which annotated ORFs are amplified and subcloned using methods greatly minimizing the risk of PCR-induced mutations. These clones are to be made available, without restriction, to researchers worldwide.

The Gateway™ cloning system was adopted by the OC for use with all of its clones. This site-specific recombinational cloning system allows for efficient transfer of the ORF sequence from one vector (Entry vector) to any other expression vector modified with the requisite recombination sites flanking the insertion site for the ORF (Destination vector). ORFs transferred in this way have been found to acquire sequence changes only very rarely; thus, for most purposes, transferred sequences require no additional sequence analysis. Current OC participants include the Dana Farber Cancer Institute-Center for Cancer Systems Biology, DKFZ, Geneservice Ltd, Harvard Institute of Proteomics, IMAGE Consortium, imaGenes GmbH, Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Mammalian Gene Collection, RIKEN Yokohama Institute, and the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute. Additional participants are possible in the future. The bioinformatics analysis of gene targets and isolated cDNA clones is conducted jointly between WTSI/HAVANA group and NCBI. The central repository for the OC clones is the IMAGE Consortium, where clones are re-arrayed and provided to the distributors.

ORFeome clones allow you to enter a fast track to protein expression: tedious PCR, subcloning into expression vectors, and sequence verification efforts can be avoided.