DeCODE's new service will allow anyone to get one million points on his or her genome scanned using newfangled DNA chips.
For example, they could delete genes to determine how much of the genome is needed for survival, or see how much genome scrambling it takes to produce a new species.
Indeed studies have demonstrated that such cell lines are either depleted of mtDNA (12) or that the mitochondrial genome is highly mutated (13).
FORBES: Big Study Linking Chronic Fatigue To Virus May Be Fatally Flawed
Unlike the effort to decode the human genome, or the project to put a man on the moon, the mapping of the human brain is a fuzzy endeavor, with no obvious milestones along the way.
Of the 50, 000 or so genes in the genome, nobody expected that 1, 000 would be handling odor detection.
Unfortunately, to do this, scientists need to know the function of each of the 100, 000 or so genes nestled in the human genome.
FORBES: Rosetta Inpharmatics Reads Genome As Recipe For Drugs
Both firms were among the first to use computerized databases to scan the genome-the "map" or blueprint of 25, 000 or so active genes that contain the code for the body's proteins.
It also has a small genome compared to other higher plants like maize or wheat.
Until the past decade or so, it had been accepted wisdom in the genetics community that only the tiniest percentage of the human genome contains the instructions that determine how we look, feel and act whether we (or our ancestral population group) are more likely to be grumpy or gregarious, impetuous or cautious, generous or a Grinch, a speedster or a marathoner, slow-witted or a math ace.
FORBES: Arguing Over Junk: Scientists Attack Each Other as Media Flub 'DNA Story of the Year'
The monumental effort to sequence the entire human genome -- to spell out the 3 billion or so combinations of those letters in a cell's DNA -- is keeping a lot of academic and commercial laboratories busy.
Myriad has no more right to patent these parts of the naturally occurring code in the human genome than it would to patent an apple, or a branch off of a tree that could be used to hit a ball or scratch your back, Ravicher says.
FORBES: Big Question For Supreme Court: Can You Patent A Gene?
In the case of bacteria, six or seven have served, but for the far-longer human genome ten are planned.
Whereas 62% of the genome may be turned into finished transcripts in some cell or other, only about 22% of the DNA ends up in such transcripts in the typical cell.
In general terms, a change in your genome sequence can mean a small alteration, like removing or adding a single link in a chain, or it can mean a structural change involving bigger chunks, like removing or adding whole sections of the chain.
The genetics of mitochondria are most peculiar: several different strains of mitochondria, each with its own slightly different genome, can co-exist in a single body, or even in a single cell.
Many of the responses involve running strands of DNA through tiny pores of one sort or another and Jeff Schloss, a programme director at the National Human Genome Research Institute (which is part of the NIH), reckons this is a particularly fruitful approach.
ECONOMIST: Nanopores may lead the way to a new generation of sequencing
Today these slightly crippled versions of housekeeping genes are scattered more or less haphazardly through the human population and are considered normal components of the human genome.
WSJ: A Gene Gives a Hint Of How Long a Person Might Hope to Live
The next decade or two--finally, finally--will see abundant fruit from sequencing the human genome.
Rather, it is selfish or junk DNA, a molecular parasite that, over many generations, has disseminated itself throughout the genome through some sort of transpositional process.
Some genome labs in reporting results will only include information about genes linked to diseases that have known treatments or prevention strategies.
Instead, they lurk deep inside "junk" or "dark" DNA, the mysterious and seemingly inactive regions that compose 98.5% of the genome and whose functions are unknown.
应用推荐