The Japanese pufferfish, or Fugu rubripes, is the first vertebrate genome sequence to be completed after the map of the human genetic code was unveiled earlier this year.

"This will help us to understand the human genome better and faster," Dr. Bryrappa Venkatesh of Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) told Reuters.

The Fugu Genome Project consortium was lead by the IMCB and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute, which was involved in decoding the human genetic blueprint.

The Singapore team has spent 11 years on the project.

The fugu, a popular Japanese delicacy which puffs up into a spiky baseball-sized globe when threatened, is expected to provide vital clues to how human genes are regulated. The fugu is separated from humans by a 450-million-year evolutionary gap. Similar regulatory sequences found between the two are believed to be essential for survival.

At about one-eighth the size of the human genome, the fugu's is the smallest known genome of all vertebrates, making the discovery of genes and regulatory sequences a much easier task.

DNA between two genes contain the regulatory elements for an organism. In the fugu, this region is concise and contains none of the repetitive elements humans have.

"It helps the understanding of how human genes are regulated and what human genes do, because the fugu (sequence) is very compact and all the functionally significant sequences are conserved," Venkatesh said.

The fugu genome sequence will be made freely available for public use. But scientists can file patents on gene function discoveries which may offer new drug targets after studying the fugu genome.

The IMCB has filed for one patent so far, Venkatesh said.