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

only americans suffer from brain diseases

[chifut]

this many million Americans, that many million Americans, does anybody else matter on this planet?

Re:only americans suffer from brain diseases

[O'Laochdha]

Okay, first off, that was a joke.

Seriously, though, it is somewhat important to emphasize the disease's effect on the US to get US grants. If we found a cure for AIDS, there's no doubt in my mind that we'd share it. However, if AIDS (or one of the diseases in question, or any other) were rare in the US, but more widespread overseas, it would be fairly difficult to get grants, and most scientists would spend their time on other, more lucrative things. Selfish, maybe, but I don't think there's a country in the world that doesn't put some degree of priority on domestic issues. And for all we talk about scientists only being interested in grants, they can't do their job without them.

A better allegory would be: if no one in Japan (where the disease is rare) cared to look into a cure for AIDS, would we be happy to remain infected until a more afflicted country found the cure on its own?

Re:only americans suffer from brain diseases

[Spikeles]

If we found a cure for AIDS, there's no doubt in my mind that we'd share it.

Ahhahahahaha. You made me laugh.. *wipes tears* You are joking right? You are saying that in this day and age of patents/trademarks and corporate secrets they would share the biggest cash cow of the millenium! I think not.. they will milk it for every drop it's worth, you will have to pay the discoverers royalties whenever you produce it, if they even let you produce it, assuming they don't set up their own production plant. Imagine it.. The cure! You could charge whatever price you want, sell it on ebay! it'd be worth trillions, if you ever sell it, and if someone figures out the chemical breakdown and produces it you could sue their ass off for even more money.

great

[User 956]

Genetic Mapping of Mouse Brain Complete

Then they can get started on mapping Pinky, and then they can take over the world!

It's sure good to be a mouse these days...

[teutonic_leech]

Considering all those medical advances related to enhancing the life of mice I must assume that our planet is run by a small group of super-enhanced labmice which managed to escape and take over.

Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky: Try to take over the world!"

Wow, someone didn't do his homework

[suv4x4]

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

That's an instant classic. Genes don't exactly work like this you know?

90% same genes isn't like 90% same species. We share over 70% with insects and over 50% with plants.
Yet, I wanna see someone claim that by dissecting oranges he can help us fight heart diseases.

Let's face it: he's a scientist, he wanted to do it, he had to convince the sponsors. That's fine..

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.

Woah

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

This brain mapping might be just about a step too far with mouse experimentation. If you add up all the other improvements on them, and make them smart enough to escape, they are going to kick our asses. Then take our women. Not that the last part will bother too many people here. :p

/narf

Actually, it is the mice experimenting on them...

[DMiax]

We happen to be only the third most intelligent ones...

Let's Do the Math

[eldavojohn]

A coworker of mine tried to astonish me with the same fact. He said, "We have over 90% of the same genes as mice!"

It's not too astonishing to me. Considering from the point of DNA, you are no where close to the end product. I'm not a biologist but to my knowledge, DNA can be one of four acids. Those, in turn are read in varying lengths to make one of twenty different amino acids. Those amino acids can be read in varying lengths to be one of hundreds (if not thousands) different proteins which are the building blocks of life.

So if you want to shock me and tell me that between a mouse and I, nine in every ten genes is the same, I'm not going to be too shocked. If one in every ten is different, I could see the above transformation resulting in something no where near the same thing.

But the basic idea is very very well founded, any gene to protein research is good research. Since we know very little about that process and find it quite difficult to predict. The answer to Alzheimer's is believed to be rooted in this process and, by working backwards, we may be able to isolate the genes that cause it. That is, of course, assuming it's due to a twisted protein which may or may not be caused by a common virus or just age.