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Hello all; This is an interesting group of articles, all published on the same day. Modrun technology at its best. And advancing more quickly by the day/hour/minute. Janet who saw the sun yesterday for the first time in 5 days. paradise indeed! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Genetic maps published, completing phase of gene-mapping project --------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ) 1996 Nando.net Copyright ) 1996 The Associated Press NEW YORK (Mar 13, 1996 7:58 p.m. EST) -- In a step that completes the first phase of the huge project to catalog the human genes, scientists are publishing two comprehensive maps of mouse and human DNA. "These two maps have already changed the face of human and mouse biology," Elke Jordan and Dr. Frances S. Collins of the National Center for Human Genome Research in Bethesda, Md., wrote in an accompanying editorial. That's because information from the maps was made available to scientists well before publication, said Jordan, deputy director of the center. Collins is director. That information has greatly speeded searches for single genes that cause disease and has made it possible to look for genes that act together to contribute to other diseases, Jordan said. For example, it has let scientists get promising leads on where to find genes affecting such disorders as juvenile-onset diabetes, schizophrenia and learning disability, Jordan and Collins wrote. Genes lie along microscopic structures called chromosomes, and the new maps reveal landmarks along chromosomes that can be used to zero in on genes. The mouse map gives 7,377 landmarks, the human map 5,264. In the genetic maps, each chromosome is depicted as a line, and the landmarks are located along it. The maps are presented in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The one for mouse DNA comes from William F. Dietrich, Joyce Miller, Eric S. Lander and colleagues at the Whitehead-MIT Center for Genome Research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and scientists elsewhere. It's important because mouse gene studies give leads about human genetics. The human DNA map is from Jean Weissenbach, scientific director of the gene laboratory Genethon in Evry, France, with colleagues there and elsewhere in France and Canada. The next phase of the overall gene project is to produce more detailed maps called physical maps. The ultimate goal of the project is to identify all of the estimated 100,000 human genes and find the details of their makeup by the year 2005. A physical map is basically a user's guide for thousands of chromosome fragments that are stored in laboratory refrigerators. If an inheritance study shows that a sought-after gene lies close to a certain marker, scientists can use a physical map to learn which chromosome fragments should be searched to find the gene. ------------------------------------------------------------------- -----Janet [log in to unmask]