{"id":11831,"date":"2025-07-15T14:26:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/11831\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T14:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:26:03","slug":"roundworm-genome-map-benefits-synthetic-biology-human-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/11831\/","title":{"rendered":"Roundworm genome map benefits synthetic biology, human health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have sequenced the complete genome of a roundworm used extensively in biological research, opening a new pathway for synthetic biologists to build and test genetic changes in a multicellular animal species. The fundamental breakthrough will benefit research on human diseases, including cancer.<\/p>\n

In a paper published July 15 on the cover of Genome Research<\/a>, scientists at Cornell, the University of Tokyo, Stanford University, the University of Minnesota and Rockefeller University described their decade-long effort to fully identify the genome of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a transparent roundworm nematode about 1 millimeter in length that researchers around the world have used for over 60 years to elucidate fundamental understanding of genetics and cell communication and development.<\/p>\n

Certain organisms \u2013 such as fruit flies, brewer\u2019s yeast and E. coli \u2013 are used widely among the research community as model species to explore basic biology. This uniformity allows scientists to test, replicate and build upon each other\u2019s work more consistently. C. elegans became a model species in the 1960s and was used to conduct\u00a0Nobel Prize-winning research<\/a> on \u201cgenetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a model species like C. elegans, it\u2019s critically important that scientists work from genetically identical material so that genetic abnormalities of the organisms in various labs don\u2019t disrupt findings, said\u00a0Erich Schwarz<\/a>, paper co-author and assistant research professor of molecular biology and genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to understand human medicine, human biology, you can start by studying much simpler organisms. Because we have a common evolutionary ancestor, many of the basic genetic processes that we care about in humans also occur in organisms like E. coli and C. elegans,\u201d Schwarz said. \u201cIn a model animal that you want to manipulate, knowing the \u2018normal version\u2019 of their genetic code is a very important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the rapid development of genome sequencing in the 1990s, scientists began mapping the genomes of model species. Researchers identified single-celled E. coli\u2019s genome in 1997 and described what they believed to be the full genetic code of multicellular C. elegans between 1998 and 2005. However, it became clear by 2019 that C. elegans\u2019 genome description was incomplete. In addition, over 60 years of widespread use, genetic variations had begun to crop up in the organisms used in labs \u2013 an observation made by Andrew Fire, paper co-author, Stanford professor and 2006 Nobel Prize winner, Schwarz said.<\/p>\n

With continued advancements in genome sequencing technology and painstaking efforts, the 14 researchers at five universities have now corrected the full genome. They discovered 183 genes that had never been identified before and 6 million more base pairs in the organism\u2019s genome than had previously been known. First author of the paper is Kazuki Ichikawa, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Basic science like this is harder for the public to understand but is crucial to lay the groundwork for advancements in medical research and other fields, Schwarz said. For example, scientists in the 1980s made breakthroughs in understanding oncogenes \u2013 genes strongly associated with cancer development \u2013 by conducting research with C. elegans and fruit flies, he said.<\/p>\n

Now, synthetic biologists are working toward future breakthroughs by manipulating and even fully constructing genetic codes in plants and animals. Initial efforts have been made in single-celled organisms, like the bacteria E. coli or the fungus S. cerevisiae, more commonly known as brewer\u2019s yeast. C. elegans, as a multicellular animal, would be \u201cthe next step up,\u201d Schwarz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving this complete, corrected genome for C. elegans is a very basic resource that will allow other people to drive down an intellectual road and discover things we can\u2019t even imagine yet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The research was supported by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, the Beckman Foundation, the American Heart Association, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Cornell University.<\/p>\n

Krisy Gashler is a writer for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.\u202f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have sequenced the complete genome of a roundworm used extensively in biological research, opening a new pathway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[200,79],"class_list":["post-11831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-genetics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}