Berita@MKST : Stp hidupan mempunyai set genetik yg sama, ttp fungsi berbeza

dauswq

From deep within the genomes oforganisms as diverse as plants, worms and yeast, scientists have uncovered newgenes responsible for causing human diseases such as cancer and deafness.


The University of Texas at Austin scientists exploited the fact that all lifeon Earth shares common ancestry, and therefore shares sets of genes.


They found genes in yeast, for example,that humans use to make veins and arteries, even though yeasts have no bloodvessels at all. Yeasts use those same genes to fix their cell walls in responseto stress.


"Basically, we figured out a wayto discover the genetic basis for disease by looking at organisms other thanhumans and finding disease equivalents," says Edward Marcotte, professorof chemistry and biochemistry.


To find the new genes, Marcotte and hisgraduate students developed a computer algorithm that first sifts through vastsets of existing genomic data for worms, mice, yeast, plants and humans. Thealgorithm pairs up sets of genes that overlap between these organisms andhumans.


In doing so, it highlights genes thatare known to work together to do one thing in the non-human organism, but thefunction of which are not yet known in humans. The scientists can then testthose new genes in the lab to determine their function.
"The basic essence of the methodis that there are ancient modules of genes that have been reused in differentcontexts over time," says Marcotte. "So the yeast uses a particularmodule with a particular set of inputs and outputs to do one task. Humans usethis same module with different inputs and outputs to do another."


In the case of blood vessel formation,or angiogenesis, the scientists found 62 genes that yeast use to fix their cellwalls that matched with a few genes known to be responsible for vein and arteryformation in humans.
Developmental biologist JohnWallingford and his graduate students then tested the human equivalents of the62 yeast genes in developing frog embryos in the lab. This confirmed that eightof those 62 genes help build blood vessels in animals. Several of these geneswere also confirmed in humans.


The newly found human angiogenesisgenes are great candidates for drugs, says Marcotte.
"Tumors fool your body intofeeding them by initiating blood vessel growth, and that's the reason we'reinterested in angiogenesis," says Marcotte. "So, genes forangiogenesis are common targets for chemotherapy. Some of the most effectivechemotherapies block angiogenesis."


The scientists also found a set ofgenes in nematode worms involved in human breast cancer. Surprisingly, it isthe same set of genes in the worms responsible for determining how many maleoffspring a parent worm births.
In plants, they found a gene that isinvolved with a genetic disorder called Waardenburg syndrome, which causes asignificant fraction of cases of human deafness. (Strangely, plants use thegene as part of their system for sensing gravity, called gravitropism.)


The researchers are teasing out genesfor a variety of human disorders, from mental retardation and birth defects tocataracts. Their goal is to find new genetic targets for therapy.


"By exploiting evolution andlooking at lower organisms that don't even have the organs we're lookingfor—blood vessels or even heads—but share some of the underlying molecularprocesses, we're able to discover genes relevant to human diseases," saysMarcotte.


Marcotte admits it may seem odd to lookfor human disease genes in something like a plant or yeast, but that theinformation is proving to be extremely useful, if not surprising.


"When we found the genes in plantsresponsible for Waardenberg syndrome in humans," he says, "we werescreaming in the halls."
Source :
University ofTexas at Austin

dauswq

nice
tapi apa signifikan penemuan ini

Sephiroth

You don't know what you have pasted?

Basically, it means that ALL lifeforms on the Planet have the same genetic linage. First lifeforms to appear on the Planet were single-cell organism, which appeared OVER 600 million years ago (Pre-Cambrian).

After the Cambrian Explosion, a large amount of complex organisms appears and dwell in the ocean (but they all evolved from the similar genetic lineage.

Over the course of 600 million years, many beings came and went and finally, humans (Homo Sapiens) appears around 500,000 years and we are here today. But we're not unique in term of genetics. It is possible that the same genetic traits in our body can be trace back to the first cell-organism in the ocean, as well as mice, dogs and cats which living with us today.

According to the report above (at least to my understanding) that, even so we have similar genetic traits, something in our body makes these genetic traits act differently than it could on another species. For example, we have genetic traits which can be found in Yeast, except in Yeast, it uses that genetic traits to fix its cell walls while we uses it to fix veins and blood vessels.

jie_kumiko

pnjg nyeeee.....
dhla omputeh...
leh jadik ubat tido neh...
mgu dpn..abis final la jie bc

mziskandar

mm. so,
hardware sama.. tapi os/software lain2...
camtu la kot..