Help flies in for human genome

摘要

Worms and flies are to be enlisted by researchers attempting to make sense of the instructions embedded in the human genome. Since 2003, geneticists in the United States have been engaged in the pilot phase of a project called ENCODE - the Encyclopedia of DNA elements -which aims to catalogue all the functional parts of the human genome at a cost of around US$20 million a year. Now, a four-year, $57 million project called modENCODE will add roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans) and fruitflies (Drosophila melanogaster) to the mix. By analysing these trusty model organisms, scientists hope to make better sense of the human-genome data gleaned from ENCODE.