NHGRIResearchers have long recognized genomic similarities across species. New results from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) and model organism ENCODE (modENCODE) projects, published in a series of papers in Nature today (August 27), could support further comparative analysis; together, the projects have now added more than 1,600 data sets, bringing the total number of available ENCODE/modENCODE data sets to 3,300. In their respective papers, the teams behind each project also provide key cross-species comparisons of genome regulation in nematode (roundworm), fly, and human cells.
“What’s really striking about these papers is that they find ways in which we can map similarities in genomic function between key model organisms that are often used in lab research,” said geneticist William Bush of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio who was not involved with the studies. “They have built models of genomic function that span all of these organisms.”
Previously, most cross-species comparisons of genome regulation examined only a few sites in the genome, yielding mixed results. Some studies suggested that regulatory regions were strongly conserved, while others found greater diversity among the same locations.
In one study, Alan Boyle of Stanford University in California and his colleagues compared maps of where transcription-regulating factors bind across the genomes of fly (Drosophila melanogaster), ...
