一个联合研究小组4月30日报告说，他们成功完成对一种非洲青蛙的基因组测序，这项成果有助于理解一些人类基因的基本功能。

        由美国能源部联合基因组研究所科学家乌费·赫尔斯滕领导的研究小组在30日出版的美国《科学》杂志上报告说，非洲爪蟾主要生活在撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲地区。非洲爪蟾的基因组有约17亿个碱基对，包含2万至2．1万个基因，其中约1700个基因与人类相应的基因非常相似，而这些基因与癌症、哮喘、心脏病等疾病的发病有关。

        研究人员表示，这项成果有助于理解一些人类基因的基本功能，从而更好地将其应用在人类健康领域。此外，它还可以帮助科学家找到两栖动物在范围内迅速消亡的原因。

        参与研究的美国罗切斯特大学医学中心免疫学家雅克·罗伯特说，非洲爪蟾可以成为一个很好的“模型”，从而让我们更多地了解人类自身的基因。这项研究有助于理解“热带爪蛙”那些与人类相似的基因如何被“打开”或“关闭”，以及它们对致病过程发挥的作用。

上海劲马生物推荐原文出处：

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1183670

The Genome of the Western Clawed Frog Xenopus tropicalis
Uffe Hellsten,1,* Richard M. Harland,2 Michael J. Gilchrist,3 David Hendrix,2 Jerzy Jurka,4 Vladimir Kapitonov,4 Ivan Ovcharenko,5 Nicholas H. Putnam,6 Shengqiang Shu,1 Leila Taher,5 Ira L. Blitz,7 Bruce Blumberg,7 Darwin S. Dichmann,2 Inna Dubchak,1 Enrique Amaya,8 John C. Detter,9 Russell Fletcher, 2 Daniela S. Gerhard,10 David Goodstein,1 Tina Graves,11 Igor V. Grigoriev,1 Jane Grimwood,1,12 Takeshi Kawashima,2,13 Erika Lindquist,1 Susan M. Lucas,1 Paul E. Mead,14 Therese Mitros,2 Hajime Ogi5 Yuko Ohta,16 Alexander V. Poliakov,1 Nicolas Pollet,17 Jacques Robert,18 Asaf Salamov,1 Amy K. Sater,19 Jeremy Schmutz,1,12 Astrid Terry,1 Peter D. Vize,20 Wesley C. Warren,11 Dan Wells,19 Andrea Wills,2 Richard K. Wilson,11 Lyle B. Zimmerman,21 Aaron M. Zorn,22 Robert Grainger,23 Timothy Grammer,2 Mustafa K. Khokha,24 Paul M. Richardson,1 Daniel S. Rokhsar1,2

The western clawed frog Xenopus tropicalis is an important model for vertebrate development that combines experimental advantages of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis with more tractable genetics. Here we present a draft genome sequence assembly of X. tropicalis. This genome encodes more than 20,000 protein-coding genes, including orthologs of at least 1700 human disease genes. Over 1 million expressed sequence tags validated the annotation. More than one-third of the genome consists of transposable elements, with unusually prevalent DNA transposons. Like that of other tetrapods, the genome of X. tropicalis contains gene deserts enriched for conserved noncoding elements. The genome exhibits substantial shared synteny with human and chicken over major parts of large chromosomes, broken by lineage-specific chromosome fusions and fissions, mainly in the mammalian lineage.

1 Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA 94598, USA.
2 Center for Integrative Genomics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
3 Division of Systems Biology, MRC National Institute for Medical Research, The Ridgeway, London NW7 1AA, UK.
4 Genetic Information Research Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.
5 National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA.
6 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
7 Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, 4410 Natural Sciences Building 2, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA  92697–2300, USA.
8 The Healing Foundation Centre, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK.
9 DOE Joint Genome Institute, Los Alamos, National Laboratory, Los Alamos NM 87545, USA.
10 Office of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, DHHS Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
11 Genome Sequencing Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
12 Joint Genome Institute HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, 601 Genome Way, Huntsville, AL 35806, USA.
13 Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, 12-22, Suzaki, Uruma, Okinawa 904-2234, Japan.
14 Department of Pathology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, D4047C, Mailstop 342, Memphis, TN 38105, USA.
15 Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916-5 Takayama, Ikoma, Nara, Japan.
16 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
17 Programme d’Epigénomique, CNRS, Genopole, Université d’Evry Val d’Essonne, F-91058 Evry, France.
18 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Box 672, University of Rochester, Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642,  USA.
19 Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX  77204–5001, USA.
20 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
21 MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London NW7 1AA, UK.
22 Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45229, USA.
23 Department of Biology, Gilmer Hall, Post Office Box 400328, Charlottesville, VA 22904–4328, USA.
24 Department of Pediatrics and Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, Post Office Box 208064, New Haven, CT 06520–8064, USA.