Vast gene-expression map yields neurological and environmental stress insights
A consortium led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has conducted the largest survey yet of how information encoded in an animal genome is processed in different organs, stages of development, and environmental conditions. Their findings paint a new picture of how genes function in the nervous system and in response to environmental stress.
They report their research this week in the Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature.
The scientists studied the fruit fly, an important model organism in genetics research. Seventy percent of known human disease genes have closely related genes in the fly, yet the fly genome is one-thirtieth the size of ours. Previous fruit fly research has provided insights on cancer, birth defects, addictive behavior, and neurological diseases. It has also advanced our understanding of processes common to all animals such as body patterning and synaptic transmission.
In the latest scientific fruit from the fruit fly, the consortium, led by Susan Celniker of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, generated the most comprehensive map of gene expression in any animal to date. Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley, Indiana University at Bloomington, the University of Connecticut Health Center, and several other institutions contributed to the research.
