一個聯(lián)合研究小組4月30日報告說，他們成功完成對一種非洲青蛙的基因組測序，這項成果有助于理解一些人類基因的基本功能。

        由美國能源部聯(lián)合基因組研究所科學(xué)家烏費·赫爾斯滕領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組在30日出版的美國《科學(xué)》雜志上報告說，非洲爪蟾主要生活在撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲地區(qū)。非洲爪蟾的基因組有約17億個堿基對，包含2萬至2．1萬個基因，其中約1700個基因與人類相應(yīng)的基因非常相似，而這些基因與癌癥、哮喘、心臟病等疾病的發(fā)病有關(guān)。

        研究人員表示，這項成果有助于理解一些人類基因的基本功能，從而更好地將其應(yīng)用在人類健康領(lǐng)域。此外，它還可以幫助科學(xué)家找到兩棲動物在范圍內(nèi)迅速消亡的原因。

        參與研究的美國羅切斯特大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)中心免疫學(xué)家雅克·羅伯特說，非洲爪蟾可以成為一個很好的“模型”，從而讓我們更多地了解人類自身的基因。這項研究有助于理解“熱帶爪蛙”那些與人類相似的基因如何被“打開”或“關(guān)閉”，以及它們對致病過程發(fā)揮的作用。

上海勁馬生物推薦原文出處：

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1183670

The Genome of the Western Clawed Frog Xenopus tropicalis
Uffe Hellsten,1,* Richard M. Harland,2 Michael J. Gilchrist,3 David Hendrix,2 Jerzy Jurka,4 Vladimir Kapitonov,4 Ivan Ovcharenko,5 Nicholas H. Putnam,6 Shengqiang Shu,1 Leila Taher,5 Ira L. Blitz,7 Bruce Blumberg,7 Darwin S. Dichmann,2 Inna Dubchak,1 Enrique Amaya,8 John C. Detter,9 Russell Fletcher, 2 Daniela S. Gerhard,10 David Goodstein,1 Tina Graves,11 Igor V. Grigoriev,1 Jane Grimwood,1,12 Takeshi Kawashima,2,13 Erika Lindquist,1 Susan M. Lucas,1 Paul E. Mead,14 Therese Mitros,2 Hajime Ogi5 Yuko Ohta,16 Alexander V. Poliakov,1 Nicolas Pollet,17 Jacques Robert,18 Asaf Salamov,1 Amy K. Sater,19 Jeremy Schmutz,1,12 Astrid Terry,1 Peter D. Vize,20 Wesley C. Warren,11 Dan Wells,19 Andrea Wills,2 Richard K. Wilson,11 Lyle B. Zimmerman,21 Aaron M. Zorn,22 Robert Grainger,23 Timothy Grammer,2 Mustafa K. Khokha,24 Paul M. Richardson,1 Daniel S. Rokhsar1,2

The western clawed frog Xenopus tropicalis is an important model for vertebrate development that combines experimental advantages of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis with more tractable genetics. Here we present a draft genome sequence assembly of X. tropicalis. This genome encodes more than 20,000 protein-coding genes, including orthologs of at least 1700 human disease genes. Over 1 million expressed sequence tags validated the annotation. More than one-third of the genome consists of transposable elements, with unusually prevalent DNA transposons. Like that of other tetrapods, the genome of X. tropicalis contains gene deserts enriched for conserved noncoding elements. The genome exhibits substantial shared synteny with human and chicken over major parts of large chromosomes, broken by lineage-specific chromosome fusions and fissions, mainly in the mammalian lineage.

1 Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA 94598, USA.
2 Center for Integrative Genomics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
3 Division of Systems Biology, MRC National Institute for Medical Research, The Ridgeway, London NW7 1AA, UK.
4 Genetic Information Research Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.
5 National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA.
6 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
7 Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, 4410 Natural Sciences Building 2, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA  92697–2300, USA.
8 The Healing Foundation Centre, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK.
9 DOE Joint Genome Institute, Los Alamos, National Laboratory, Los Alamos NM 87545, USA.
10 Office of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, DHHS Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
11 Genome Sequencing Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
12 Joint Genome Institute HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, 601 Genome Way, Huntsville, AL 35806, USA.
13 Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, 12-22, Suzaki, Uruma, Okinawa 904-2234, Japan.
14 Department of Pathology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, D4047C, Mailstop 342, Memphis, TN 38105, USA.
15 Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916-5 Takayama, Ikoma, Nara, Japan.
16 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
17 Programme d’Epigénomique, CNRS, Genopole, Université d’Evry Val d’Essonne, F-91058 Evry, France.
18 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Box 672, University of Rochester, Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642,  USA.
19 Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX  77204–5001, USA.
20 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
21 MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London NW7 1AA, UK.
22 Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45229, USA.
23 Department of Biology, Gilmer Hall, Post Office Box 400328, Charlottesville, VA 22904–4328, USA.
24 Department of Pediatrics and Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, Post Office Box 208064, New Haven, CT 06520–8064, USA.