Abstract
Cephalopods have evolved an elaborate camera eye and sophisticated central nervous system, and are believed to be the most advanced invertebrates. The heart-blood vascular systems as well as camera type eye in cephalopods has also been recognized as homologous organs found in vertebrates. Therefore, genomes of the cephalopods should be essential resources not only for cephalopods researchers but also for biologists studying evolution, development and comparative genomics. However, there is no genome data available so far, due to relatively large-sized genomes that are comparable with mammals (3-5Gb). In this situation, the Cephalopod Sequencing Consortium (CephSeq Consortium) has established at a NESCent meeting held on May, 2012 and agreed on a set of cephalopod species of particular importance for initial sequencing and developed strategies, and an organization (CephSeq Consortium) to promote this sequencing. Here, I introduce recent movements of cephalopod genomics, and discuss prospects of cephalopod studies and applications to outside the cephalopod researchers community.
