First crustacean genome sequenced
2 Mar 2011 by Evoluted New Media
The humble water flea might be too small to see, but is valuable as a marker for pollution and toxins in freshwater ecosystems; now it’s genome has been sequenced and will allow scientists to infer how the environment and genes interact.
The humble water flea might be too small to see, but is valuable as a marker for pollution and toxins in freshwater ecosystems; now it’s genome has been sequenced and will allow scientists to infer how the environment and genes interact.
 |
The freshwater water flea Daphnia pulex shares many of its genes with humans Credit: Jan Michels, Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel |
The Daphnia pulex has the most genes of any organism sequenced so far – around 31,000 compared to 23,000 in humans – and is the first crustacean to have its entire genome sequenced. Since it shares many genes with humans, scientists hope to use the sentinel species to manage our water resources and protect human health.
“Until now, Daphnia has primarily been used as sentinel species for monitoring the integrity of aquatic ecosystems,” said Joseph Shaw, a biologist at Indiana University – Bloomington. “But with many shared genes between Daphnia and humans, we will now also apply Daphnia as a surrogate model to address issues directly related to human health.”
Daphnia is emerging as a model organism for a new field of science – environmental genomics – that aims to better understand how genes and the environment interact. Shaw hopes this study will allow scientists to integrate studies of environmental quality with research of human diseases.
"Genome research on the responses of animals to stress has important implications for assessing environmental risks to humans," said James E Klaunig from Indiana University. "The Daphnia system is an exquisite aquatic sensor, a potential high-tech and modern version of the mineshaft canary. With knowledge of its genome, and using both field sampling and laboratory studies, the possible effects of environmental agents on cellular and molecular processes can be resolved and linked to similar processes in humans."
“Daphnia can serve as an important ‘canary in the coal mine’ for freshwater ecosystems and their response to environmental contamination,” said Joshua Hamilton, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “When the Daphnia population is impacted, it is likely that the entire ecosystem is being adversely affected and may be on the verge of collapse,” he added.
Efforts to determine the genetic sequence were led by the Daphnia Genomics Consortium, an international team of scientists led by the Centre for Genomics and Bioinformatics (CGB) at Indiana University and the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute.
