BGI and Danish Researchers Complete 2,000 Exomes for Metabolic Disease Project

November 09, 2010

Researchers presented an outline of the project goals and methods at the American Society for Human Genetics meeting last week. The scientists are currently analyzing the data and hope to obtain first results within a few months.

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Papers of Note

Connection Between Epigenome, Selective Mutability, Evolution, and Human Disease
Li, Harris et al., PLoS Genetics
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Genetic Data for Modern Genetic Breeds 'Have Yet to Shed Light on Dog Origins'
Larson, Karlsson et al., PNAS
A team led by researchers at the University of Durham investigate the value of modern genetic data to elucidate the origins of dog domestication by analyzing 49,024 autosomal SNPs in 19 wolves and 1,375 dogs, representing 35 breeds. The team reports having uncovered conflicting evidence when correlating the earliest archeological dogs with the geographic locations of 14 breeds thought to be ancient. "These genetically distinct ancient breeds only appear so because of their relative isolation, suggesting that studies of modern breeds have yet to shed light on dog origins," the authors write.
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Science
A pair of studies, one published in Nature and one published in Nature Genetics, detail the efforts of researchers who used exome sequencing to look into the mutational profiles and pathways that can contribute to prostate cancer. The first group found nine genes with recurrent somatic mutations, six of which had previously been implicated in the disease. The second group demonstrated that recurrent mutations in the ubiquitin ligase-coding gene called SPOP define a non-ETS gene fusion containing prostate cancer subtype.
Business
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Funding
The UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council will invest £19 million ($29.8 million) in the Genome Analysis Center at the Norwich Research Park in the UK as part of a broader, five-year £250 million ($392 million) investment in the biosciences. As part of the larger investment, the Roslin Institute in Scotland will receive £23 million to further its livestock animal genomics research, the Babraham Institute in Cambridge will get £37 million, and the John Innes Centre will receive £42 million.
Genome Technology Magazine
More than a decade ago, fluorescent reporter studies highlighted the stochastic nature of gene expression, and biologists then began to examine the phenotypic heterogeneity they saw in clonal cell populations, through they chalked up what they saw to noisiness in gene expression. Still, researchers wondered about the cause of the randomness they had observed. Now, biophysicists and systems biologists are looking into that question and aim to figure out how and why single cells and molecules behave the way they do, and the consequences of that behavior.

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BGI and Danish Researchers Complete 2,000 Exomes for Metabolic Disease Project

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