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More Information about Functional Genomics
Background
The purpose of the Functional Genomics Research Project is to apply the technological advances made by the Human Genome Project to marine organisms. Functional genomics is an established technology in biomedical science (e.g., Afshari et al., 2002) that has proven predictive power not available from traditional environmental toxicology (Waring et al., 2001). The rationale for a functional genomics approach to assessing the health of populations and the stressors to which they are exposed is that many (although not necessarily all) stressors encountered by an organism will perturb the dynamics of gene expression in characteristic ways (as measured by messenger RNA levels). These responses provide diagnostic and predictive “transcriptional signatures” at the molecular genetic level. The application of this technology to marine toxicology and ecosystem assessment has great potential (Snape et al., 2004). Functional genomic research involves, as an essential first step, the collection of the expressed gene sequences of a species to defined exposures. When applied to little-studied marine organisms (e.g., oysters or shrimp), significant novel gene discovery is a certain outcome (Gueguen et al., 2003; Jenny et al., 2002; Gross et al., 2001). For example, recent genomics research by the HML Marine Genomics Group has resulted in:
- New insight into the antimicrobial peptides of the shrimp immune system (Cuthbertson et al., 2002) that are important components of the crustacean defense system against pathogens; and
- Identification and description of novel metallothioneins in the oyster (Jenny et al., 2004) that are important for understanding the response of oysters to metals contamination and oxidative stress.