Scientists compare 12 fruit fly genomes

Specifically, researchers used the evolutionary signals to discover 1,193 new protein-coding sequences and called into question 414 sequences previously reported as protein-coding genes in the D. melanogaster genome sequence. In addition, they found hundreds of novel functional elements across the 12 fruit fly genomes, including: non-protein coding genes; regulatory elements involved in the control of gene transcription; and DNA sequences that mediate the structure and dynamics of chromosomes.

“Our analyses only represent a small portion of questions that can be answered in the context of these 12 species,” said Andrew G. Clark, Ph.D., from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., a co-author on the Nature papers. “Today’s findings represent an important starting point for future research aimed at understanding the function of the genome features we discovered and their relevance to the human genome.”

The fruit fly genome sequences and details about the information encoded by these genomes are publicly available from the NHGRI-funded FlyBase database project (http://flybase.bio.indiana.edu). Flybase is a collaboration of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Indiana University, Bloomington; and the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. The fruit fly genome sequences are also available from NIH’s National Center for Biotechnology Information (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). NCBI distributes the sequence data to the European Molecular Biology laboratory’s Nucleotide Sequence Database, EMBL-Bank (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl/index.html), and the DNA Data Bank of Japan, DDBJ (www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp). The 12 fruit fly species are available to the research community through the NSF- supported Tucson Drosophila Species Stock Center at the University of Arizona (http://stockcenter.arl.arizona.edu/).

NHGRI is one of 27 institutes and centers at the NIH, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The NHGRI Division of Extramural Research supports grants for research and for training and career development at sites nationwide. Additional information about NHGRI can be found at its Web site, www.genome.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) –“The Nation's Medical Research Agency” – includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.