Using Mice to Understand the Human Genome
Reuters had an interesting look a couple weeks ago at how scientists are using mice to better understand the human genome. The occasion was the 18th International Congress of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Craig Venter, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Celera Genomics — the company that recently played a key role in finishing the mapping of the human genome — announced that Celera planed on having a complete map of the mouse genome finished by the end of the year. The mouse would become only the second mammal to have its genome mapped.
This will help scientists get a better handle on just how genes function. Because mice and human beings evolved from a common mammal ancestor, they share many genes. With both human and mouse genomes mapped, scientists can compare the two and arrive at a better understanding of the role that genes play in diseases.
For example, Reuters reports that pharmaceutical companies are already mapping the functions of genes in mice by knocking out certain genes and then seeing what happens. In this way it’s possible to get a handle on how a gene functions in humans by seeing how it functions in human beings.
”The mouse is extremely important,” said Jan Hoeijmakers of Erasmus University, “because we can change any gene we wish and mimic exactly the mutation that causes disease in human patients.”
Animal rights activists have long insisted that non-human animals are too different from human beings to be useful comparisons, but in fact mice and men are turning out to be very similar. According to Reuters, some of the early comparisons between already sequenced human and mice genes has found the genetic sequence so similar that it’s all but impossible to distinguish whether the genes are from a mouse or human. Obviously there will be many differences, but there will also should be a very large number of similarities.
As Venter sums it up, “Comparative genomics is going to be the single most important tool going forward in analyzing genomes.”
And, of course, it won’t stop at mice. Already there are plans to map the genes of other mammals species including the dog, cat, and rat.
Source:
Mouse Aids Navigating Gene Maze. Reuters. July 17, 2000.
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