3rd Chromosome Deciphered

veeoh writes: "Another chapter in the human book of life has been published. Scientists working as part of the Human Genome Project(including some from the Wellcome Trust) have deciphered the complete genetic instructions of a third chromosome, one of the 24 bundles of DNA that carry our genetic material. The BBC has an article about the discovery"

Comments

Comparison to mice chromosomes?

[Harumuka]

With the 3rd human genome chromosome completely mapped out, it's time to move on to other chromosomes such as the 17th. According to A Brief History of The Human Genome Project,

For example the 17th chromosome in mice is homologous in large part to the 11th in human beings and of the 35 mapped loci in both organisms on these chromosomes, all but two are ordered into the same sequence.

I wonder how similar 3rd chromosome of mice is to the 3rd chromosome of the human genome. Any research being done in this field?

Re:Comparison to mice chromosomes?

[Quizme2000]

Actually, it's worse than that - chromosomes don't say "make hair like this" - they say "make this protein",

IMHO, thats where the real fun starts is in protien folding. It's extremely difficult to take apart the molecules and fold them correctly back to a stable state. The best analogy i heard was from the director of the HGP, "Its like the highway system, its expensive to build, time consuming, and doesn't generate revenue directly. But it is the first step in the next generation of genetics reaserch needed for sucess."

Nature has the full story.

[Ashran]

For anyone interested in a more detailed article, visit this link

/wave

Excellent reference book

[perelgut]

If you are interested in reading about genomics and you want a high level view that has enough science to be interesting without being too specialized, I strongly recommend Matt Ridley's book "Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters". Here's a link.

The book has one chapter for each of the 23 chromosomes and it has some general discussion as well as some facts that are known or suspected about the sequences in that chromosome.

Re:24?

[bats]

There are 24 chromosomes. There are 46 chromosomes. Stop! You're both right.

The average human has 46 chromosomes. There are 23 pairs of them. Of the 23 pairs, 22 pairs consist of similarly constructed mates only differing in the base pairs (AGTC) -- but the structure of the thing is the same. The other set is the XY pair (which determines sex), which are structurally different, ie different sizes, shapes.

So there are 24 kinds of chromosomes, of which most people have 46. Girls have 23 different kinds (no Y) while guys have all 24.

Re:Poor practice

[frenchs]

Some people will see this as "a waste of money". But I would much rather the government spend money through grants and do some research itself, because they can't hold the patents on this information once they finish it. It's OUR money, so it's OUR information when they find it out.

Chimera (unix, linux, windows) is a molecular modeling program developed by UC San Francisco, but it was funded by a government grant from the NIH, so guess what, you can download it for free provided you don't want to make money using it.

The NIH (government orginization) has actually REQUIRED that people that use their money to come up with a protein sequence should deposit it in a freely accessable database

Also, just a side note. If anyone wants to download the program, just grab some protiens from the protien database and load them up. Some stuff you might find interesting in the way of proteins.

tryptophan

hemoglobin

Alcohol Dehydrogenase

DNA (not a protein, but oh well)

Insulin

more...

Enjoy,
Steve

No, what does this say about YOU.

[Xzzy]

> Diabetes, now reaching epidemic proportions in
> adults and children, is nearly always caused by
> a poor diet.

Dude, feel free to talk about your eczema however you want because you probably know a fair a bit about it but don't EVEN go spouting this crap about diabetics unless you're going to get your facts straight.

There's two types of diabetes. While I'll grant that one of them is triggered by lifestyle (but that's not all there is to it, else EVERY obese person in the world would be diabetic, which obviously isn't the case), the other is strictly hereditery.

It usually hits kids just as they start going into puberty; sixth grade and around in there. It has nothing to do with lifestyle; I spent easily half my time tearing around the neighrbood with friends and I was within a few pounds of "average" weight, yet fate still plucked me out and gave me the disease.
Unless of course you're prepared to claim that having an active childhood causes diabetes..

Diabetes is hereditary. Fact, end of story. If I sound pissed off, it's because I am.

Not the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics

[JeffL]

The work was actually done at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near the town of Cambridge, not at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, part of the University of Oxford.

The WTCHG is actually a cool place that looks for genes for complex diseases, writes useful software, and are heavily invested in using Linux as a scientific computing platform.

They have an 86 cpu Mosix/Linux cluster, and two 8 CPU, 8GB machines running Linux.

Speaking as a scientist...

[Chico Science]

I think I can shed some light on the subject...

The pathology of diabetes is complex. First, one has two recognize there's two types of diabetes. Type 1, called juvenile or insulin-dependent, diabetes and type 2, or non-insulin-dependent, diabetes.

Type 1 is most definitely genetic. While it doesn't have 100% concordance between identical twins, developmental factors can come into play, there is a genetic predisposition. Several genes have been linked with type I diabetes. The primary pathology of this disease is that it is an autoimmune disease. The immune system of the diabetic attacks the cells of the pancreas, depleting the organ of its ability to produce insulin.

Type 2 is a far more complex disorder. The pathology of this disease is that the pancreas is able to produce insulin, albeit not as much as normal people. The significant issue is insulin resistance. The body starts to ignore the metabolic signals of insulin, which causes a feedback loop that ultimately taxes the pancreas and leads to depletion of the pancreatic insulin function (it peters out over time). Due to its complexity and the generalization that it is a disease of obesity, it was considered more of a behavioral disorder (at least more so than type 1). Research, however, is showing there are genetic predispositions to type 2 diabetes (some of this is not even in the genome of the diabetic, but int the small chromosome of the mitochondria, the energy producing organelle in the cells). Also, studies are finding there also seems to be some autoimmunity involved in type 2 diabetes. Lastly, there appears to be a trigger event, believed to possibly be viral.

So, while type 2 diabetes is indeed exacerbated by obesity, one cannot call it a disease of diet.

--

On the topic of obesity, research is showing that there are more factors involved than 'being lazy and eating crap'. On the whole, 'being lazy and eating crap' is bad for your health and its true that our society is progressively leading less healthier lifestyles... but one should note some people can eat crap and not exercise and be perfectly svelte and healthy. Then there are people like one of my colleagues who is a world-class longcourse triathelete, exercises more than anyone I know, eats an exceptionally healthy diet, and can count the number of times she's been sick in the last decade on one hand.. yet she her body mass index puts her in the obese category.

Increasingly, research is showing that adipose (fat) tissue should be considered an organ of the endocrine system. The complex events of endocrine singaling are what regulate resting metabolic rate, glucose and insulin levels, fat metabolism and deposition, caloric intake, response to diet, etc. It is a very complex system that has a lot of factors, including genetic ones.. as well as ones which may be environmental or behavioral but have very definite and difficult to reverse pathologies.

The value of genetics research, pharmacogenetics and pharmacology should not be shrugged off. Yep, put down the donut is good advice, but let's not ignore complexicity because a simple answer sounds nice.

--

Ciao, C.Sc.

Re:24?

[mindstrm]

Actually...
Females have 23 pairs.
Guys have 22 pairs, plus 2 chromosomes that are not a 'pair'. (XY instead of XX).

The useless Y chromosome, I'm told, is what makes males inferior.