BCIB NEW blog spot
Penn State Researchers Publish Tasmanian Tiger Sequence
By By Rachel Criner
Penn State researchers experienced yet another
breakthrough regarding their extinct animal genome project Tuesday.
The research team, in collaboration with researchers from six other countries, released a new study that detailed its genome sequencing of the Tasmanian tiger, a species that went extinct in the 1930s.
Like in the woolly mammoth project, the research team used "hair genomics," in which extracted DNA from ancient hair is sequenced using new gene-sequencing technology.
The research team faced difficulty in sequencing the Tasmanian tiger's genome because far less genetic data was provided than in the woolly mammoth case, said Webb Miller, professor of biology and computer science and engineering.
Because many Tasmanian tigers were not preserved, the researchers had few outlets from which to obtain hair specimens. They sequenced a few hairs that had been cut off from in between the toes of Tasmanian tigers from the Smithsonian museum, Miller said.
"People did not take care of Tasmanian tigers very well, except in those few cases in which they tanned their skin and then subjected their bodies to nasty chemicals that probably damaged their DNA," Miller said.
The genome sequencing of the Tasmanian tiger was a second phase following the sequencing of the woolly mammoth, which allowed the research team to check whether the lessons learned in the mammoth case were also true for this extinct species, said Stephan Schuster, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.
"We are trying to learn as much about extinction as possible and then applying the knowledge to endangered species to see if we can prevent their extinction," said Aakrosh Ratan, a research team member.
This month, the research team started sequencing the genome of the Tasmanian devil, an endangered animal suffering from Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD).
"The Tasmanian devil is not only an endangered animal, but it is also one of the most endangered animals right now," Schuster said. "Over the last five years, more than 50 percent of them have been lost."
The research team is working in conjunction with the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program (STTDP), an Australian organization that has 20 sites across Australia that focus on breeding the endangered species and then releasing it into the wild, Schuster said.
However, STTDP breeds animals randomly, so the Penn State research team is focused on sequencing the Tasmanian devil's genome to determine if the random breeding is actually doing more harm than good, Schuster said, as some breeding animals may be carrying the DFTD gene.
U-Wire: 16th January 2009