Can humans exploit the genetics of a mouse that regrows axons after injury?
2019 OCT 15 (NewsRx) -- By a
The method, developed by Buck professor
“Across the tree of life, organisms have acquired remarkable disease and stress resistance traits, some of which far outstrip the programs that are found in humans,” said Brem, who is the lead investigator on the grant and will be working with two other labs at the Buck plus a collaborator at the
Brem’s method is also being deployed in other projects at the Buck involving evolutionary “outliers”-wild animal species that have developed unusual resistance to stress, disease, pathogens, and the breakdown of tissues during aging. “The potential return on investment of this grant is enormous,” said Brem. “If we succeed, a new field will open up - experimental genetics on far-flung, reproductively isolated animal species. We’ve got a lot of great science ahead of us, and we are eager to get to it.”
“We are extremely excited and proud to receive this prestigious grant,” said Buck President and CEO
Prior to this point, searching for the genetic basis of a trait could be only done between individuals of the same species. Biologists often resorted to guessing when trying to answer a similar question between species. Brem’s new method, which was detailed last year in the journal Nature Genetics, involves mating two species to form a sterile hybrid, and then pummeling it with artificial mutations; those that perturb a trait of interest become a signpost for the relevant DNA sequence differences between the two parents. For this research, the Buck has already received stem cells from a hybrid between Mus castaneus and the common European house mouse, M. musculus, which was created at
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