Estimating the probability that a genomic library contains a specific DNA sequence

A genomic library generally contains a random collection of DNA fragments from one organism individually cloned into cells of a host organism using plasmid or viral vectors. For a genomic library to be reliable, it is crucial that the library have a high probability of containing a complete copy of any particular gene being studied. In this article, we compare several different methods of estimating this probability based on data from a genomic library of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii DNA. Results suggest that a method based on estimated insert size will generally be preferred because of its precision and cost effectiveness relative to other methods.