In February 2001, Celera Genomics announced that it had completed sequencing the mouse genome. This week researchers at British and American universities announced they had finished their sequencing of the mouse genome which they promptly posted on the Internet for anyone to use.
Because mice are so similar to human beings, the freely available mouse genome will have far reaching impacts on research into human diseases. Sanger Institute researcher Tim Hubbard told The BBC,
The mouse is a key model organism for humans. Their genomes are so similar that you can just compare the two directly. If there are mouse genes we know something about, we can now find genes that look the same in humans.
In fact contrary to what was thought before the sequencing of animal genomes, both mice and humans have roughly the same number of genes. Of course mice are also quite different from human beings, but those differences also will give researchers important information. According to Hubbard,
The mouse has a fantastic sense of smell and you can already see that in the genes. It has a lot more genes than humans connected with olfactory receptors.
So, the animal has its specialties and even looking at those differences will help us understand those things which are critical to humans that mice don’t have. But the basic biology, the basic physiology, is very similar to humans, and having this new information is going to consolidate our understanding of what are the key parts for making a vertebrate.
Hubbard told New Scientist that progress in understanding such functions will improve even more once more mammalian species have their genomes sequenced. Hubbard said the rat genome should be sequenced by the end of this year.
Source:
Mouse code laid bare. The BBC, May 6, 2002.
Mouse’s genetic code made public. Andy Coghlan, NewScientist.Com, May 7, 2002.