主页 > 医学讨论 >
【medical-news】蜜蜂基因组编码的核受体分析
她的研究内容是分析蜜蜂基因组内编码的核激素受体,其结果亦刊登在了<昆虫分子生物学>上.
选择蜜蜂进行测序是因为其具有农业和医学上的双重意义,它众所周知的传授花粉的活动每年都能给美国农作物增加数十亿的产值.在实验室里,蜜蜂则被用来研究与人类健康有关的课题,例如免疫,长寿,以及与X染色体有关的疾病.另外,研究大脑的科学家们对蜜蜂复杂的社会活动以及各成员之间如何相互告知花的位置很感兴趣.
神经发育学教授Fahrbach和她在Wake Forest 大学以及伊利诺斯州的同事们筛查了整个基因组以寻找所有由蜜蜂基因组编码的核受体.他们发现在蜜蜂早期调控神经系统发育的核受体可在成年蜜蜂大脑特定的具有高度可塑性的区域表达,可能发挥着相似的调节大脑生长的作用.
Fahrbach说,核受体是仅仅在动物中发现的一个DNA结合蛋白家族,它们调节着发育和生殖.对人类而言,雌激素和睾酮的受体都属于这个DNA结合蛋白家族的成员.
这些研究结果部分揭示了核受体在成年蜜蜂特定行为的形成过程中发挥作用,而不仅仅在发育早期和生殖中起作用.
Fahrbach实验室的研究人员还有另一个让人震惊的发现.
"我们原以为蜜蜂和果蝇应有一套相同的核受体,因为它们都是具有变态发育史的昆虫."Fahrbach说道.
然而,她在蜜蜂基因组中发现了一个果蝇所没有的基因.在人类,这个基因在眼睛的正常发育中起着关键作用.尽管Fahrbach不知道该基因在蜜蜂中的功能,但初期研究表明该基因编码的蛋白质仅仅存在于蜜蜂正在发育的复眼中.
Fahrbach目前的研究集中在蜜蜂大脑的分子结构方面以及激素和行为的可能联系上.
"我们选择蜜蜂作为研究的模型,这是因为在蜜蜂飞出蜂房,飞向花丛,不断积累经验的过程中,它们大脑的某些区域会增大,"她说道,"如果我们能了解蜜蜂小小的大脑是如何工作的,很有可能获知关于其它更大的大脑的信息."
原文:
Professor Analyzes Nuclear Receptors In Bee Genome
Article Date: 28 Oct 2006 - 1:00am (PDT)
|
Susan Fahrbach, a Wake Forest University biologist, is among the more than 170 researchers who helped decode the honey bee genome. She contributed to the article on the bee genome sequence that appears in the Oct. 26 issue of Nature.
Her piece of the puzzle -- analyzing the nuclear hormone receptors found in the bee genome -- also appears in the current issue of Insect Molecular Biology.
The honey bee was chosen to have its genome sequenced because of its dual importance to agriculture and medicine. The well-known pollination activities of honey bees add billions of dollars of value to U.S. crops every year, but bees are also used in the laboratory to study issues related to human health such as immunity, longevity and diseases of the X chromosome. In addition, brain scientists are interested in the honey bee's complex social life and their ability to communicate the location of flowers to other members of the hive.
Fahrbach, Reynolds Professor of Developmental Neuroscience, and her co-researchers at Wake Forest and the University of Illinois, searched the genome sequence to find all of the nuclear receptors encoded in the bee genome. They found that the same nuclear receptors that control the development of the nervous system during the early stages of a bee's life are expressed in certain, highly plastic regions of the adult bee brain where they appear to serve a similar function of regulating brain growth.
Nuclear receptors, a family of DNA-binding proteins found only in animals, regulate many aspects of development and reproduction, Fahrbach said. In humans, for example, the receptors for estrogen and testosterone are members of this family of DNA-binding proteins.
These findings shed some light on the role nuclear receptors play in the development of adult specific bee behaviors, not just in early development or reproduction.
The researchers in Fahrbach's lab also made another discovery that surprised them.
"We expected the bee to have the same set of nuclear receptors as the fruit fly because both species are insects that share a life history of metamorphosis," she said.
But, she found a gene in the bee genome that is not found in the fly. In humans, the gene is critical for normal development of the eye. Although Fahrbach does not yet know the function of the gene in the bee, the first studies show that the protein encoded by this gene is found only in the bee's developing compound eye.
Fahrbach focuses on the molecular structure of the bee brain and possible connections between hormones and behavior.
阅读本文的人还阅读:
作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2010-11-19 05:11
医学,生命科学网