Analysis of the mouse transcriptome based on functional annotation of 60,770 full-length cDNAs

The mouse genome sequence--the end of the tail, or just the beginning?

The recent flurry of papers on the mouse genome includes the description of the full genome assembly, analysis of the mouse transcriptome, the origin of interstrain variation, initial analysis of conserved non-coding regions and high-throughput expression analysis of a subset of genes. Each illustrates how the availability of the genome sequence will change the way mouse biologists do business in future.

Axonal transport versus dendritic transport

Neurons have polarized processes for information output and input, axons, and dendrites. This polarized architecture is essential for the neuronal function. An increasing number of molecular components that mediate neuronal polarity establishment have been characterized over the past few years. The vast majority of these molecules include proteins that act in scaffolding protein complexes to sustain the polarized anchoring of molecules. In addition, more signaling and cytoskeleton-associated proteins have been proposed for establishment of polarity. It has become evident that dendritic and axonal transport of molecules depends on scaffolding/adaptor proteins that are recognized by molecular motors. Current and future research in the neuronal cell polarity will be focused on how different cargo molecules transmit their signals to the cytoskeleton and change its dynamic properties to affect the rate and direction of vesicular movement. In this review, we discuss recent evidence that scaffolding proteins can regulate motor motility and guidance by a mechanism of substrate-cytoskeletal coupling and amino acid modifications during polarized transport.

Regulation by RNA

In recent years, noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been shown to constitute key elements implicated in a number of regulatory mechanisms in the cell. They are present in bacteria and eukaryotes. The ncRNAs are involved in regulation of expression at both transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels, by mediating chromatin modifications, modulating transcription factor activity, and influencing mRNA stability, processing, and translation. Noncoding RNAs play a key role in genetic imprinting, dosage compensation of X-chromosome-linked genes, and many processes of differentiation and development.

Initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the mouse genome

The sequence of the mouse genome is a key informational tool for understanding the contents of the human genome and a key experimental tool for biomedical research. Here, we report the results of an international collaboration to produce a high-quality draft sequence of the mouse genome. We also present an initial comparative analysis of the mouse and human genomes, describing some of the insights that can be gleaned from the two sequences. We discuss topics including the analysis of the evolutionary forces shaping the size, structure and sequence of the genomes; the conservation of large-scale synteny across most of the genomes; the much lower extent of sequence orthology covering less than half of the genomes; the proportions of the genomes under selection; the number of protein-coding genes; the expansion of gene families related to reproduction and immunity; the evolution of proteins; and the identification of intraspecies polymorphism.