Researchers discover tool for identifying gene functions

The scientists harnessed a mobile gene from the cabbage looper moth and modified it for routine use to determine the function of genes in mice and other vertebrates. If the new tool works as they expect, it will speed understanding of genes involved in human biology and disease and accelerate the search for effective new therapies.

Certain genes or genetic elements, called transposons, can hop from one place to another in the genomes of various organisms. In people, this genetic shuffling ensures that the immune system can generate a huge assortment of protective antibodies.

Bacteria use the mechanism to swap antibiotic-resistance genes among themselves. And scientists have “borrowed” and adapted the same handy technique to insert genes and mutate genes in fruit flies and simpler organisms to learn the function of individual genes.

“We know how many genes are in the genome, but that does not tell us how they carry out their jobs,” said senior author Dr Tian Xu, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Yale University School of Medicine. “We have found a way to systematically inactivate genes in the mouse genome so we understand the functions of these genes.”

In the past two decades only about 3,000 of the estimated 25,000 genes shared by mice and humans have been analyzed in detail. A reliable gene-transposing tool could make that job much easier and quicker. However, it is rare to find a transposon that can work effectively on a large scale, only time will tell how well it will operate in practice.