What is Comparative Genomics
The new science of Comparative Genomics arises out of the recent biotechnology and information technology revolutions. It can briefly be described as follows:
The unique genetic information of every organism is stored in its DNA, which forms the common basic building blocks of all living organisms, encodes RNA and proteins, and can be expressed in computer-readable form. Using cutting-edge information technology known as Bioinformatics, computer-readable genetic information can be analysed and compared between individuals within and across species.
The new science of comparing these similarities and differences across all living organisms is known as Comparative Genomics. Comparative Genomics is creating new opportunities for breakthroughs in biomedical and agricultural sciences related to human disease and diagnosis, organ and bone marrow transplantation, animal and human vaccine candidate identification against harmful pathogens, and in the rapid breeding of novel crop plant varieties.
Bioinformatics provides the essential Information Technology platform for storing, managing, analysing, visualising and integrating various digitised biological information. The burgeoning sizes of the public data repositories are almost doubling every year. Defining and describing the gene and non-coding content in genomic sequences (annotation) is an ongoing, iterative and dynamic process. This activity is completely dependent on a robust Bioinformatics platform.
Comparative Genomics allows the comparison of two or more genome sequences. Given the common evolutionary basis to all living organisms, it is possible to understand the significant differences and similarities between species, as well as minute differences between individuals within a species, that can lead to disease susceptibility in one and not the other.
Comparisons with other genomes yield greatly sought-after insights into the genes that are essential for life and those that define the species. They reveal the mechanisms of evolution and the hidden mechanisms of gene regulation. The comparison of genomes has already resulted in some surprising biological discoveries and its potential cannot be underestimated in terms of both economic and social benefits to Western Australia.
Typically the fields and sub-fields of agriculture, medicine and human/animal pathogens have been studied in isolation. Through Comparative Genomics significant benefits can be gained from a coordinated and efficient use of resources that also results in conceptual advances across these different fields. A now classical example of cross-species comparisons to isolate a functionally important gene is the identification of the Human gene homologue of a Yeast mismatch repair gene, which offered the prospect of genetic screening and led to the successful discovery of mutations in the most common form of human hereditary colorectal cancers (HNPCC). Identification of the reduced height gene (Rht-1) in Wheat via the identification of a partially sequenced gene in the Rice genome has had a dramatic impact in modern wheat breeding as it has provided the basis for the selection of high yielding semi-dwarf wheats.
