Ethnically relevant consensus Korean reference genome towards personal reference genome

Human genomes are compared against a universal reference. However, the authors focused on ethnical genome. Because human genomes compared against a universal reference could miss population-specific or personal genomic variation. And these things might be detected more efficiently using an ethnically-relevant and/or a personal reference. So the authors recruited 16 Korean volunteers, and detected their genomes and constructed KOREF. And they provide evidence that an ethnically-relevant consensus reference may improve variant detection. Ethnicity-specific genomic regions such as novel sequences and copy number variable regions can affect precise genotype reconstruction.

I think the genome references like KOREF, can be utilized in many fields. We can know our ethnically DAN characteristic and might can find some diseases that are especially dangerous ethnically. And also this kind of researches will improve the technology for personal genome.