This illustration shows the DNA double helix
© AFP/HO/File

THE HAGUE (AFP) - "It's the first woman in the world and the first European whose DNA sequence will be made public," the researchers at Leiden University Medical Centre in the western Netherlands said in a statement.

"The DNA sequence and its analyses will be published soon, except for some private details," it said.

"The sequencing of a woman allows a better understanding of the X-chromosome," the gene thread associated with female characteristics, said Gert-Jan van Ommen, head of the team that carried out the study.

Four other genomes had been mapped previously, all of them men.

The genome refers to all of the genes that characterise the human species, determining individual traits including a person's proneness to certain diseases.

©AFP