November 18, 2014

Provided by Michael McCarthy, University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine

Genetic analysis unveils airway and lung responses to pandemic flu and cystic fibrosis

In what is likely to be a major step forward in the study of influenza, cystic fibrosis and other human diseases, an international research effort has sequenced the ferret genome. The sequence was then used to analyze how the flu and cystic fibrosis affect respiratory tissues at the cellular level.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of the National Institutes of Health, funded the project, which was coordinated by Michael Katze and Xinxia Peng at the University of Washington in Seattle and Federica Di Palma and Jessica Alfoldi at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

The sequencing of the ferret genome is a big deal, said Michael Katze, UW professor of microbiology, who led the research effort. Every time you sequence a genome, it allows you to answer a wide range of questions you couldnt before. Having the genome changes a field forever.

Ferrets have long been considered the best animal model for studying a number of human diseases, particularly influenza, because the strains that infect humans also infect ferrets, These infections spread from ferret to ferret much as they do from human to human.

In the study, scientists at Di Palma and Alfoldi of the Broad Institute first sequenced and annotated the genome of a domestic sable ferret (Mustela putorius furo). They then collaborated with the Katze group on the subsequent analysis. A technique called transcriptome analysis identifies all the RNA that is being produced, or transcribed, from areas of the genome that are activated at any moment. This makes it possible to see how the ferret cells are responding when challenged by influenza and cystic fibrosis.

By creating a high quality genome and transcriptome resource for the ferret, we have demonstrated how studies in non-conventional model organisms can facilitate essential bioscience research underpinning health, said Di Palma, director of Science in Vertebrate & Health Genomics at The Genome Analysis Centre.

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Ferret Genome Sequenced, Holds Clues To Respiratory Diseases