Daily News Update, Dec. 10, 2007
Genome
mapping yields clues about shipping fever
Mississippi State University researchers are developing a biological map
of how three tiny pathogens cause big losses for cattle producers each
year.
Faculty members Mark Lawrence, Shane Burgess and Bindu Nanduri of the
College of Veterinary Medicine and Susan Bridges of the Department of
Computer Science and Engineering are studying the genes and proteins of
Mannheimia haemolytica, Histophilus somni and
Pasteurella multocida. The research team is using state-of-the-art
genome science and computer modeling to detect, confirm and locate
harmful genes that cause bovine respiratory disease.
" This
disease is known in the cattle industry as shipping fever because it
commonly occurs when cattle are stressed from being shipped hundreds of
miles to feedlots," said Burgess, a veterinarian, genome biology
researcher and co-director of MSU's Institute for Digital Biology. "Many
animals that develop this syndrome stop eating, suffer and die."
The
cost of the disease to the cattle industry is more than $1 billion each
year, he said.
The
research is funded through a competitive grant from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension
Service.
Using a newly developed technique called proteogenomic mapping, MSU
researchers have overcome the limitations inherent in computer modeling.
They are using mass spectrometers at the MSU Life Sciences and
Biotechnology Institute to identify protein amino acid sequences and map
them back onto the genome DNA sequences.
Genome sequencing is the process of determining the exact order of the
chemical building blocks that make up the genetic instructions, or DNA,
used by all living organisms. The speed at which researchers can
sequence DNA and identify proteins is made possible by biotechnologies
and the development of computational technology to perform these tasks.
" Computers
have advanced the process of genome sequencing," said Bridges, a
computer scientist, computational biologist and co-director of the
Institute of Digital Biology. "The modeling programs that have been
developed allow us to chop DNA into manageable pieces of information
that we can examine and manipulate."
Accurate identification of all genes in the genomes of the three
pathogens will advance the research needed to render the pathogens
non-virulent and develop more effective vaccines to protect against
bovine respiratory disease, she added.
Once
the MSU investigators sequenced the genomes, they used computer
algorithms to predict where genes are located. But there are precautions
to address in using computer modeling to map DNA.
" We
get false-negative and false-positive predictions," said Lawrence, a
veterinarian and microbiologist directing the research. "Additionally,
there is no experimental evidence that the predicted genes are real in
most cases. Computer programs don't always identify all the genes in a
genome."
Genome sequencing will be even more important to agriculture in the
future as it becomes useful for unlocking the mysteries of disease. The
ultimate goal of the MSU research team is to accelerate disease research
by enhancing the genomic tools used to explore how bacteria cause
disease.
" The
techniques we have developed in this project could be used to confirm
gene predictions in other bacterial species as well," Lawrence said.
"Our project illustrates how multidisciplinary teams are critical in
today's biology and how they can be successful."
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