genome of schistosoma japonicum and mansoni sequenced

The schistosoma japonicum parasite causes human schistosomiasis in china and the philippines.

The genome consists of 8 pairs of chromosomes,7 pairs of autosomes and a pair of sex chromosomes.
There are 397-megabase-base sequences ,13,469 protein-coding genes,6,322 protein families and over 557,000 SNPs.

has receptors for angiotensin III,neoromedin,octopamine and urotensin.

S.Mansoni genome is 363 megabase long,has 11,809 reputed genes,of which 82 are gpcrs

$99 genome scanning service launched

23andme,based in mountain view,california is offering a $99 genome scanning service, but only if the customer allows their data to be used anonymously by researchers looking into the genetic causes of diseases.

Last month, a seatle-based company called trugenetics offered free genome scans to the first 10,000 who would offer their data to research.

Genes associated with puberty and menopause

Variations near a gene called LIN28B have been associated with the timing of a girl's first period or delayed or advanced menopause.

Lin28b is also associated with earlier breast development in girls and earlier voice-breaking in boys.

Zebrafish genetics

Zebrafish have about 300,000 antibody-producing B cells

Bovine genetics

The bovine genome has properbly over 22,000 genes

Greatest genetic diversity is in indicine Brahmin cattle with one SNP(DNA sequence variant) every 285 base pairs of DNA.


Humped and humpless cattle diverged about 250,000 years ago

Bovine genome consortium

There are plans to genetically bred aurochs
Spanish limianas and italian maremmana still have aurochs genes.
Search Amazon.com for maremmana
Search Amazon.com for cow genetics
Search Amazon.com for aurochs

Brain genes

Aspm,cdk5rap2,cenpj and mcph1 are involved in controlling brain size and mutations in these genes can scause microcephaly.

Interesting links

I have started a new blog called http://scientifictoolsandequiment.blogspot.com/ which descrides tools etc which are used to do genetic analyses.