In particular, the comparison
of gene sequences in large numbers of patients and controls will be a key step in strategies for disease gene identification.
Approximately
half of the gene sequences of human and mouse genomes comes from so - called mobile elements — genes that jump around the genome.
And researchers want more people to reveal their genome because it helps them better understand the significance of DNA anomalies, helping to improve the analytics that make
sense of a gene sequence.
As the
cost of gene sequencing drops, DNA being sequenced for one purpose may yield many other secrets, such as the risk of certain cancers and Alzheimer's disease.
When scientists at the University of Delhi in India took soil samples from a pesticide dump and compared them with samples from a cleaner control site, they reported that the soil from the waste site contained a higher concentration
of gene sequences from certain bacterial groups, such as Pseudomonas, Novosphingobium and Sphingomonas, that are known to degrade common pesticides like hexachlorocyclohexane.
They show that about 92 per cent of the population harbors bacteria with a
variant of the gene sequence, according to a survey of public genome data from 250 adult humans.
The hunt is on, spurred by recent advances in genomics, which draws biological insights from
studies of gene sequences and their variations.
But the predictability they did hope for could be threatened by an evolving policy on the
patentability of gene sequences, which is emerging from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Washington.
Although the researchers suspected that having more
copies of the gene sequence might confer a greater degree of resistance, they had no way of testing their suspicions before the new assay was developed.
Moreover, because they had an idea of what cells the genes came from and what
kinds of gene sequences produce what kinds of proteins, they were able to draw some conclusions about what all those genes are good for.
The researchers used the
power of gene sequencing and clever computational methods to uncover the «source code» for human endothelial cells and learn how that code is disturbed in human disease.
The gene that codes for this clotting protein has a very similar sequence across many plant species, and the researchers showed that the microRNA from dodder targets
regions of the gene sequence that are the most highly conserved across plants.
Alternative methods, such as
readout of gene sequences, which is also done in paternity tests, are very time - consuming and expensive.
Nick and his team have developed a process based on small
differences of the gene sequence to specifically apply gene scissors to certain points of the DNA strands that make up the genetic material.
According to Richard Durbin, who leads the project's informatics team, computer techniques seem to find
most of the genes sequenced so far but frequently missed some pieces of them, particularly the short coding regions that occur at the beginning of many nematode genes.
Then Mays, along with molecular biologist G. Michael Taylor of Imperial College in London, confirmed that the scars were signs of TB by identifying
traces of gene sequences from Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the 2300 - year - old remains.
Reference materials are critical to properly evaluate the next -
generation of gene sequencing and genetic testing methods that will increase the reliability and effectiveness of precision medicine (also known as «personalized medicine»), in which a person's genetic profile is used to create treatments and therapies unique to that individual.
Now, geneticist Bing Su of the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China and colleagues believe they have found another candidate by comparing the
evolution of gene sequences across a menagerie of animals.
This, together with other findings, suggests, that in the slave - raiding ants differences in gene expressions, i.e., the
reading of the gene sequence and the transcription into proteins, is solely geared toward the raid.
To reduce the amount
of gene sequencing required, they focused their search on mutations in the «kinase domain» of these enzymes, which is the region that is principally responsible for enzymatic activity.
The BGI project to find these genes has hit some snags recently (e.g. a US lawsuit between the two biggest
suppliers of gene sequencing machines).
About 92 per cent of the population harbours bacteria with a
variant of the gene sequence, according to the researchers» survey of public genome data from 250 adult humans.
At this point, researchers said, only a careful
study of gene sequences and morphology can determine whether the source of the brown panda variation is in the air, the soil, or the shrinking genetic diversity of the giant pandas.
Turns out, there's a scientific reason for why someone you've never met could look uncannily similar to you: Any two people taken at random are going to share about 99.5
percent of their gene sequence, according to Joseph McInerney, executive vice president of the American Society of Human Genetics.
His team then ignored
all of these gene sequences that could easily have come from sources other than the lake.
We can leverage the lowering cost
of gene sequencing to interrogate cells at a deeper level, and use computational tools to analyze the resulting data.
Each chromosome contains hundreds (or thousands)
of gene sequences that actually control inheritance.