New knowledge about mammals can enhance cancer care

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How diseases arise in humans – and which animals are on the brink of extinction. Massive mapping of the genomes of 240 mammals provides new knowledge in these areas, and a number of others.

It’s the largest mapping done to date of a mammal’s genetic mass, according to Kersten Lindblad Tuh, one of the researchers who led the project.

The findings provide knowledge about how the genetic mass of both humans and other mammals functioned and evolved during evolution.

– This is the first time we can understand in more depth how different mammals have evolved, for example why some have a good sense of smell or hibernate in winter, says Kirsten Lindblad-Toh, professor of comparative genomics at Uppsala University and also active at the Broad Institute. in the United States.

—but what I find exciting is that you can look at human disease genes and see which ones are important to the development of, say, schizophrenia and diabetes, she continues.

Previously unknown parts

The mapping was carried out by more than 30 research groups in different countries led by Uppsala University and the Broad Institute.

The genetic pool of us humans contains approximately 20,000 genes that form the “recipe” for our body’s proteins. Scientists have now identified more than three million other kinds of parts in our genome called ‘regulatory elements’, which contain instructions for where, when and how proteins are made.

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Copies of these were not previously known.

– This information can now be used by other researchers to understand the genetic basis of various diseases, says Kirsten Lindblad-Toh.

The researchers had already used the results to screen for medulloblastoma, a malignant form of pediatric heart tumor, and found a series of mutations. It is something that will hopefully lead, in the long term, to better prognosis and treatment.

It broke off in front of the asteroid

The results have been published as eleven scientific articles in the journal Science.

One study shows that mammal species began to differentiate genetically even before the dinosaur-killing asteroid hit Earth 65 million years ago.

The findings could also provide clues about which animals are on the verge of extinction by showing how much variation they have in their genetic mass, according to the researchers. This is because greater variance provides better conditions for survival.