国际性研究对人类基因有新的发现

标签:
费因格德美国人类基因百科全书元件杂谈 |
分类: 科学与技术 |
人类基因是细胞内的一组基因指令,由细胞核内的23对染色体组成。
美国国务院国际信息局(IIP)«美国参考»从华盛顿报道,全世界32个实验室的400名科研人员长达9年的合作研究使人类对人类基因的科学认识提高到一个新的水平。9月5日,美国国家人类基因研究所(National Human Genome Research Institute)宣布了有关的新发现。研究团队在三份科学杂志上发表了29篇报告,详尽介绍了研究成果。
这项研究名为“DNA元件百科全书”计划(Encyclopedia of DNA Elements)。2003年,人类基因工程曾宣布发现了全部20,000至25,000种人类脱氧核糖核酸(DNA)基因,确定了组成人类基因的30亿个化学碱基对的序列。研究工作在上述基础上获得了新的发现。 这项科学研究工程由来自许多国家的人员组成,耗时13年,取得了重要科学成就,人们认为可以与上世纪60年代末和70年代阿波罗号登月相提并论。
国家人类基因研究所所长埃里克·格林(Eric Green)博士说,“ 在有关人类基因项目进行研究的初期,研究人员曾预测只有少部分人类基因序列可以编码蛋白。蛋白是细胞的工作机,其余都属于垃圾。我们现在知道, 这个结论并不正确。DNA元件百科全书计划发现,大多数人类基因都参与复杂的分子编程,因为这是基因信息转变为活细胞和组织的必要程序。”
根据国家人类基因研究所发布的消息,DNA元件百科全书计划的目标是确定基因所有的功能元件。在这项工作开始的初期,为实现这个目标采取的方法和战略并不完备。 随着工程的进展,分析基因序列的技术也得到改进,扩大了工程的范围,其规模已经达到了惊人的地步。
设在英国的欧洲生物信息研究所(European Bioinformatics Institute)负责DNA元件百科全书计划协调工作的埃万∙伯尼(Ewan Birney)说,“我们已经取得长足的进展。我们一点一滴地搜集到浩繁的各种数据,发现人类基因在转换中保持活性,通过打开和关闭基因控制蛋白生产的时间和方位。DNA元件百科全书计划已经将我们对基因的认识提升到新的高度。”
来自美国、英国、西班牙、新加坡和日本的数百名研究人员对147种细胞组织进行了1,600多组试验。他们将80%多的人类基因序列与某种特定的生物功能相联系,制定了400万调控区的图谱。蛋白在这些调控区与DNA相互作用,从而确定为人体特定功能生成的细胞。在整个研究过程中,DNA元件百科全书计划生成的原始数据已有15万亿比特,使用计算机的时间达300多年。
国家人类基因研究所的项目主任埃莉斯 ∙费因格德(Elise Feingold)用谷歌(Google)地图为比喻,介绍DNA元件百科全书计划的数据功能。谷歌地图可以放大某一个感兴趣的区域,查看该区域的各种数据,例如地图、状态、街道和视图。
费因格德说,“同样,研究人员可以利用DNA元件百科全书计划的图谱查看人类基因中的染色体、基因、功能元件和核苷酸。”
DNA元件百科全书计划已经在因特网上为其他研究人员提供有关数据。根据国家人类基因研究所发布的消息,有关资料迅速成为研究人员认识人类生物学特征和疾病的基本来源。原来没有参与该计划的研究人员也开始使用这些数据进行疾病研究,根据这些资料发表的研究报告已达100多篇。
2003年关于基因图谱的研究报告也在当年向全球研究人员开放。人们认为由此进行的研究工作催生了数十亿美元的美国生物技术产业。
国家人类基因研究所将继续进行DNA元件百科全书计划,至少再延续4年,力图更好地认识人体内各种细胞的功能性基因元件。
国家人类基因研究所是美国国家卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health)的27个研究所和研究中心之一。美国国家卫生研究院作为医疗研究的领军机构,从事疾病的病因、治疗和根治的研究工作。
Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/chinese/article/2012/09/20120907135616.html#ixzz262GH5uBK
International Group Makes New Discoveries on Human Genome
06 September 2012
The human genome is the set of genetic instructions in the cells, consisting of 23 pairs of chromosomes, found in the nucleus.
Washington — After nine years of collaboration, 440 researchers in 32 labs around the world are pushing scientific understanding of the human genome to a new level. Findings were announced by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) September 5 as the team published its extensive findings in 29 different papers appearing in three scientific journals.
The new findings — known as the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) — build on the 2003 announcement when the Human Genome Project identified all the 20,000–25,000 genes of human DNA and determined the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA. That scientific project consumed a multinational team for 13 years, and was considered a scientific achievement on the magnitude of an Apollo mission to the moon of the late 1960s and 1970s.
“During the early debates about the Human Genome Project, researchers had predicted that only a few percent of the human genome sequence encoded proteins, the workhorses of the cell, and that the rest was junk. We now know that this conclusion was wrong,” said Dr. Eric Green, director of the NHGRI. “ENCODE has revealed that most of the human genome is involved in the complex molecular choreography required for converting genetic information into living cells and organisms.”
ENCODE’s goal was to identify all the genome’s functional elements, even though the methods and strategies to achieve the goal were not fully evolved when the work began. The technology for analysis of DNA sequencing advanced as the project unfolded, increasing the boundaries of the undertaking as it went along, in a scale that is described as “remarkable,” in a NHGRI news release.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute in the United Kingdom and a coordinator of analysis for ENCODE. “By carefully piecing together a simply staggering variety of data, we’ve shown that the human genome is simply alive with switches, turning our genes on and off and controlling when and where proteins are produced. ENCODE has taken our knowledge of the genome to the next level.”
Hundreds of researchers across the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore and Japan conducted more than 1,600 sets of experiments on 147 types of tissue. They linked more than 80 percent of the human genome sequence to a specific biological function, and mapped more than 4 million regulatory regions where proteins interact with DNA to determine cellular development for specific functions of the body. ENCODE generated more than 15 trillion bytes of raw data and ate up more than 300 years of computer time throughout the analysis.
NHGRI program director Elise Feingold likens the ENCODE data to Google’s map feature, which allows users to magnify a particular area of interest and access a variety of different data on that area, including maps, states, streets and photos.
“The ENCODE maps allow researchers to inspect the chromosomes, genes, functional elements and individual nucleotides in the human genome in much the same way,” Feingold said.
The ENCODE consortium has made the data available on the Internet to other researchers, and the material is “rapidly becoming a fundamental resource for researchers to help understand human biology and disease,” according to the NHGRI press release. Investigators who were not part of ENCODE are already using the data in disease research, resulting in publication of more than 100 scientific papers that have drawn on the data, NHGRI said.
The 2003 findings mapping the genome were also made available to the global scientific community at the time, and the research that followed is considered the advent of the multibillion dollar U.S. biotechnology industry.
NHGRI will continue ENCODE research for at least another four years to better describe the functional genomic elements in all the different types of cells in the body.
NHGRI is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, the United States frontline medical research agency, investigating the causes, treatments and cures for disease.
Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/09/20120906135564.html#ixzz262GSNFsC