Volledige titel:
The birth of ant genomics
Auteur(s):
Raghavendra Gadagkar
Gepubliceerd in:
PNAS
Jaar van publicatie:
2011
Abstract:
Er is eigenlijk niet een echt abstract, maar de eerste alinea is gratis te zien:
Today science is in the age of biology and biology is in the age of genomics. Sequencing the entire genome of an organism, an enterprise that could not have been imagined barely 50 y ago, is being thought of as the first step toward a complete understanding of its biology. If I had been asked to recommend just two families of living organisms from which to pick the first two species for whole-genome sequencing, I would surely have suggested Hominidae (with ourselves) and Formicidae (with all ants). My choice of the ant family is easy to justify. The family Formicidae consists of approximately 14,000 species of ants, all of which exhibit advanced and sophisticated social life, not unlike our own in many respects and perhaps surpassing us in some ways. The ants live in colonies headed by one or a small number of fertile queens and large number (which can sometimes run into millions) of sterile workers, and display sophisticated division of labor and most impressive levels of communication and coordination among colony members ( Fig 1 ). One of the many features of great interest is the vastly different phenotypes and lifespans of queens and workers, despite developing from the same genome. Ants have achieved spectacular ecological success and dominance, accounting for more than a third of all insect biomass and, along with termites, for more than 25% of all animal biomass in some tropical forests ( 1).
Webadres:
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/14/5477
The birth of ant genomics
Auteur(s):
Raghavendra Gadagkar
Gepubliceerd in:
PNAS
Jaar van publicatie:
2011
Abstract:
Er is eigenlijk niet een echt abstract, maar de eerste alinea is gratis te zien:
Today science is in the age of biology and biology is in the age of genomics. Sequencing the entire genome of an organism, an enterprise that could not have been imagined barely 50 y ago, is being thought of as the first step toward a complete understanding of its biology. If I had been asked to recommend just two families of living organisms from which to pick the first two species for whole-genome sequencing, I would surely have suggested Hominidae (with ourselves) and Formicidae (with all ants). My choice of the ant family is easy to justify. The family Formicidae consists of approximately 14,000 species of ants, all of which exhibit advanced and sophisticated social life, not unlike our own in many respects and perhaps surpassing us in some ways. The ants live in colonies headed by one or a small number of fertile queens and large number (which can sometimes run into millions) of sterile workers, and display sophisticated division of labor and most impressive levels of communication and coordination among colony members ( Fig 1 ). One of the many features of great interest is the vastly different phenotypes and lifespans of queens and workers, despite developing from the same genome. Ants have achieved spectacular ecological success and dominance, accounting for more than a third of all insect biomass and, along with termites, for more than 25% of all animal biomass in some tropical forests ( 1).
Webadres:
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/14/5477
Dit artikel is een commentaarstuk op/over verschillende artikelen die de sequencing van het genoom van verschillende soorten bespreken. Het is daarom een fijn stuk om de laatste stappen in dit veld samen te vatten.
Wie geïnteresseerd is in de verschillende soorten kan waarschijnlijk zonder problemen de betreffende stukken vinden, ik zal er hier niet naar linken. Momenteel is het genoom van de volgende soorten bekend: Linepithema humile, Pogonomyrmex barbatus, Solenopsis invicta, Camponotus floridanus, Harpegnathos saltator, en Atta cephalotes (deze laatste werd besproken in het artikel waar ik onlangs zelf al een topic over plaatste).
Door deze eerste stappen kunnen de verschillende mierensoorten eindelijk op genomisch niveau vergeleken worden, wat het uitpluizen van verschillende beter mogelijk maakt. Momenteel zijn er al veel mooie potentiële verklaringen gevonden voor waarom deze mieren zijn zoals ze zijn (lees zelf het artikel voor meer diepgang), maar dit commentaarstuk trekt hierbij een mooie vergelijking:
"The facts gleaned and described in the first article reporting the sequence of an organism’s genome should really be thought of as no more than a postcard sent home by a visitor giving first impressions of a city—say, New York—after spending just a day. The longer the visitor stays, the more he learns, and if he stays for years, he may write books about the architecture, the art and fashion scene, the crime scene, the ethnic composition of the city, and so on. We should expect something similar from those who will continue to study these genome sequences for many years to come."
Ik ben zelf in ieder geval benieuwd naar wat de toekomst ons brengt (als ik niet bezig was met andere ambities zou ik er graag deel van zijn
).