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Mouse Genetic Code Published

Posted by timothy on from the cheese-gene-still-elusive dept.

linuxwrangler writes "Scientists in six countries have published a nearly-complete genetic code of the mouse. Results show striking similarities between human and mouse DNA and scientists are now working on side-beside mapping of the two genomes."

10 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. I know! I know! by GuyMannDude · · Score: 4, Funny

    Results show striking similarities between human and mouse DNA and scientists are now working on side-beside mapping of the two genomes

    And the project is called "Of Mice and Men", right?

    GMD

    --
    watch this
    1. Re:I know! I know! by hitchhacker · · Score: 4, Funny


      > And the project is called "Of Mice and Men", right?

      more like "The Best laid plans of mice and men."
      oooh, creepy.
      The mice will be furious.

      -metric

  2. In other news... by Omega+Hacker · · Score: 3, Funny

    God has filed suit against the scientists who have "decoded" the DNA of a mouse, citing the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.

    --
    GStreamer - The only way to stream!
  3. Striking similarities. by Kaz+Kylheku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just looking at a mouse shows striking similarities to a human being. Skeleton with a backbone, pelvis and skull. Two eyes. Brain, nervous system, heart, lungs. A nose with two holes above a mouth, between two eyes. Et cetera.

    It's not that astounding that similarities in the genetic code should be found, or even striking ones. ;)

  4. DNA is nice and all by Cokelee · · Score: 5, Informative

    but what could possibly be more important is noncoding RNA, or microRNA. I read a good article about it at Science News.
    Another useful link is the project site for the program RNAGENiE.

    Just thought many people would find that interesting.

    1. Re:DNA is nice and all by Otter · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Note, though, that microRNAs and other noncoding RNAs are encoded by genes in DNA, just like the more familiar genes whose RNAs are translated to protein. That's perhaps part of the reason why humans seem to have a surprisingly low number of genes -- microRNAs were recently discovered and there may be many more such families that existing methods don't recognize as genes.

      Presumably such families, being important, would be similar between the human and mouse genome and much of the analysis of those similarities involves looking exactly for that.

      --
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  5. Doesn't Disney have copyright? by MacAndrew · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or patent or trademark or whatever the heck Mickey is at this point. The Sonny Bono Act will only carry them so far. (Don't blame him for what Disney forces him to lobby for.)

    Genetically engineered mice can be patented, so bioengineered or cloned progeny of Mickey may be attractive to Disney Genetics and Licensing, Inc. There is some suspicion Mickey himself is engineered, as he has not aged in over 60 years.

    Set Mickey free!

  6. Re:Spoiler Alert: by GMontag451 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The pairs are for the two different helices in DNA, you don't actually write the other member of the pair when describing a DNA sequence. ACCCCT is perfectly fine DNA. It just has a complement (other side) of TGGGGA.

  7. Original Articles by SilverLuz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nature is providing most or all of the 'mouse edition' of their journal freely on their website, www.nature.com
    Some of the editorials read easily, but are a bit more meaty than little newsbites.

    I'm surprised this story didn't make the main page - do people not realize how important this data is? Having a mammalian genome available for comparative analyses with the human genome is a major landmark. The articles I've seen mostly talk about locating genes, but its locating other things - regulatory regions, non-coding RNA genes, and other functional non-protein-coding DNA - that's more difficult, but now possible, and, IMNSHO, much more exciting. Then again, I'm rather biased.

  8. Actually, side by side mapping is finished by MikeJ9919 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Side by side mapping for the most recent build of the mouse genome (alignment dated in August 2002) is finished. It's only the question of analysis that's now important. The article in Nature (I'm one of the co-authors) explores a variety of different methods for explaining the differences between the human and the mouse genomes, and (hopefully) for eventually explaining (or at least predicting) the process of evolution at the genetic level. It's hard to explain how massive this project was...a lot of the information was spun of into papers in other journals simply because Nature couldn't fit it all.