Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

UC-Berkeley researchers: Anemone genome more similar to humans' than expected
By Stephanie Ludwig
Daily Californian (UC-Berkeley)
07/09/2007

(U-WIRE) BERKELEY, Calif. — Sea anemones and human beings have much more in common biologically than outward appearances would suggest, according to research from University of California-Berkeley scientists published Friday in Science Magazine.

Genome sequencing of the starlet sea anemone conducted by Daniel Rokhsar, a professor of molecular and cell biology who works with the Center for Integrative Genomics, and Nicholas Putnam, a postdoctoral student working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute, along with other researchers, revealed that the genetic code of the sea anemone is startlingly similar to the human genome.

The starlet sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, was selected for genome sequencing because it is considered to be a good representative of the ancient Cnidarian family of organisms, which Putnam said is increasingly being used as a model system for evolutionary development.

"Because it is an ancient phylum that hasn't changed much in millions of years, studying Cnidaria can teach us the ancestors of almost all animals," Putnam said.

The genes of the starlet sea anemone were sequenced and then compared to those of humans as well as plants, fungi and other animals using computational analysis algorithms, some of which were developed by Rokhsar and his team, Putnam said.

The sea anemone genome is surprisingly similar to that of humans, even compared to the genomes of those animals that are considered closely related to humans, such as apes, Putnam said.

The team discovered that there are approximately 7,000 genes shared in common between the starlet sea anemone and humans. The genes have a broad range of functions, including developmentally important signaling pathways and what Putnam called "housekeeping" genes that take care of basic biological functions.

"Humans and anemones diverged around 700 million years ago, way back during the pre-Cambrian period," Putnam said. "To me, the most surprising aspect of this discovery is that the genome organization is conserved from the ancient common ancestor of humans and sea anemones."

These common genes found in both sea anemones and humans are found in other animal species, and a few of the genes are also shared by plants and fungi, he said.

"One way to think about this result is that it really shows us the unity of animals. All animals have essentially the same toolkit and they have a lot of common genome features we weren't aware of to this extent before."

The three-year-study has yet to completely map the sea anemone genome, but Putnam said the research so far has given the researchers what seems to be a complete picture.

"The next stage of our research will be to apply these methods to a bunch of other animal genomes such as sponges and worms," he said.

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