Computational method identifies genes that regulate cell's...( An interdisciplinary team of researcher...)

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Stanford University and Tel Aviv University has developed the first computational method that can identify clusters of genes responsible for controlling processes within a cell, when those clusters become active, and, most importantly, how the clusters are regulated.

In a paper published online May 12 by Nature Genetics, the researchers report that their method revealed several previously unknown control, or regulatory, genes from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, better known as baker's yeast.

"Revealing the control mechanism for gene clusters is crucial for understanding how cells respond to internal and external signals," said team member David Botstein, a professor of genetics at Stanford. "Because this new method can predict the functions of regulator genes and their targets, we're given a lot of insight into the roles of as yet unknown regulatory genes."

Each cell in our body contains a copy of the genome, a long DNA molecule that stores the genetic information inherited from our parents. The DNA molecule encodes for a large number of genes, each of which is the recipe for building a specific protein. The cell's machinery is formed from collections of different proteins.

Although all cells in our body contain identical DNA molecules, they dramatically differ in their protein makeup: muscle cells do not contain many of the proteins that are needed by liver cells, and vice-versa. Precise regulation of gene expression (that is, when the genes are activated or deactivated) is crucial to ensure that the right proteins are being made at the right time. Understanding the processes that are responsible for this gene regulation is a central question in genetics and molecular biology that has important implications for understanding how cells function and how diseases that involve breakdown in regulatory processes, such as cancer, can develop.

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Contact: Jerry Barach
jerryb@savion.huji.ac.il
972-2-588-2904
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
12-May-2003

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