The ESTobacco project was born following the call launched at the time of the "genomic" round table of the 5^th Tobacco Scientific Meeting in Bergerac.  The purpose of this project is initially to sequence a large number of expressed tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) genes. 

This work on the tobacco genome is expected in the next few years to improve our knowledge about the interactions between genes involved in the formation of undesirable compounds in cigarette smoke.  A close link exists between the expression of genes in the tobacco plant, the chemical composition of raw tobacco, and the formation of toxic compounds in cigarette smoke. 

The aim of this project is to be complementary to other tobacco genome sequencing projects which are currently underway.  Our strategy aims to sequence only genes expressed in tobacco and not the whole genome (95% of DNA is not expressed).  The large size of the tobacco genome (29X greater than that of A. thaliana) precludes the sequencing of the total genome. 

Thanks to the availability of this expressed sequence information, a DNA microarray can be built to allow comprehensive and large scale study of the genes expressed in tobacco.  The development of this new tool will lead to the acceleration of programs already underway concerning the origins of risks associated with tobacco and provide researchers with information on the means to attenuate these risks.

In order to encourage a wide range of initiatives on tobacco plant genetics, as for other crops, the resulting sequences obtained during the collaboration are freely available to the worldwide scientific community trough public access databases.