Genetic Mapping of Mouse Brain Complete

Vicissitude writes "A 3-D reference atlas of the genes that are active in the mouse brain is now complete. The atlas was declared finished on Tuesday, although scientists have been using it regularly for more than a year. The project was started in 2002 with $100 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen." From the article: "'Since mice and humans share more than 90 percent of genes, the Allen Brain Atlas has enormous potential for understanding human neurological diseases and disorders affecting more than 50 million Americans each year,' the Allen Institute for Brain Science said. These include Alzheimer's disease, which affects 4.5 million Americans, autism, which may occur in one in every 175 births, epilepsy, which affects 2.7 million Americans, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease."

Comments

Junk DNA

[eldavojohn]

What I am very curious to know is what the verdict is on the 99% of Junk DNA that mice have. Humans have a similar scenario but what "junk" means is that this DNA does not code into proteins or seem to have a function. I recall reading an article where lab scientists had successfully removed a large chunk of what was believed to be junk DNA.

Every mouse born missing that trait suffered a severe spine defect which looked like multiple sclerosis beyond belief. It was then believed that this deformity occurred in every mouse born but when inserted into junk DNA, it would be rendered harmless. Without the junk DNA to absorb the common deformity, the protein sequence for spinal cells was effectively altered nearly all the time.

Hopefully with this mapping, we'll be able to better understand mice (and, in turn humans and optimistically eukaryotes in general). And perhaps we'll be able to settle the dispute as to whether or not junk DNA has functions beyond our insight.

Unfortunately, I think one of the even more important tools for figuring out how Alzheimer's Desease occurs is understanding how proteins fold. Hopefully this will aid researchers looking to do this as a valuable tool.