It's a big day in comparative biology. Researchers around the country, including Stanford geneticist Michael Snyder, PhD, are publishing the results of a massive collaboration meant to suss out the genomic similarities (and differences) among model organisms like the fruit fly and the laboratory roundworm. A package of four papers, which describe how these organisms control how, when and where they express certain genes to generate the cell types necessary for complex life, appears today in Nature.
From our release:
The research is an extension of the ENCODE, or Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, project that was initiated in 2003. As part of the large collaborative project, which was sponsored by the National Human Genome Research Institute, researchers published more than 4 million regulatory elements found within the human genome in 2012. Known as binding sites, these regions of DNA serve as landing pads for proteins and other molecules known as regulatory factors that control when and how genes are used to make proteins.
The new effort, known as modENCODE, brings a similar analysis to key model organisms like the fly and the worm. Snyder is the senior author of two of the papers published today describing some aspects of the modENCODE project, which has led to the publication, or upcoming publication, of more than 20 papers in a variety of journals. The Nature papers, and the modENCODE project, are summarized in a News and Views article in the journal (subscription required to access all papers).
As Snyder said in our release, "We’re trying to understand the basic principles that govern how genes are turned on and off. The worm and the fly have been the premier model organisms in biology for decades, and have provided the foundation for much of what we’ve learned about human biology. If we can learn how the rules of gene expression evolved over time, we can apply that knowledge to better understand human biology and disease."
The researchers found that, although the broad strokes of gene regulation are shared among species, there are also significant differences. These differences may help explain why humans walk, flies fly and worms slither, for example:
The wealth of data from the modENCODE project will fuel research projects for decades to come, according to Snyder.
“We now have one of the most complete pictures ever generated of the regulatory regions and factors in several genomes,” said Snyder. “This knowledge will be invaluable to researchers in the field.”
Previously: Scientists announce the completion of the ENCODE project, a massive genome encyclopedia
