Broadly speaking there are two things geneticists are interested in - firstly the genetic code itself, and secondly how this code is read and turned into proteins. It is these proteins that do pretty much everything in the body from repairing cells to providing immunity to a disease.
We're now in an era where we can get huge amounts of genetic information for remarkably little money. For a while now researchers have been doing studies where they compare the genetic codes of two groups e.g. people with a disease, and people without - in order to work out why some people succumb to disease, or how the disease itself works. Another approach is to look at which genes are turned on or off, and how much of a particular protein is made from a specific gene when someone gets sick (gene expression).
This is all hugely helpful for advancing our understanding of diseases and for improving medicine - and we can do the same for non-humans too.
A nice paper from the Rosenblum lab looked at which genes were expressed (read and turned into proteins) differently when two frog species were infected with the deadly chytrid fungus. From this experiment they gained a better understanding of how the fungus kills amphibians (disruption of skin function) and showed that the amphibians weren't launching a strong immune response.
We've been doing the same thing for Ranavirus and chytrid in the Common frog - looking at which genes are read differently when a frog is infected, and how this differs between diseases. It looks like there is a solid immune response to chytrid (not surprising as this species is pretty resilient to this fungus), but a lower immune response to Ranavirus (which is very lethal to this species).
We've submitted the paper for publication and will do a more detailed blog post once the work has gone through peer review. Hopefully this work will give us a better understanding of amphibian immunity, and why some individuals or species are more susceptible or resistant to each pathogen. This could be useful for working out future conservation strategies - for example we could choose less susceptible individuals for captive breeding and reintroduction, or have a way of telling which species are the most vulnerable and need the most protection.
We're now in an era where we can get huge amounts of genetic information for remarkably little money. For a while now researchers have been doing studies where they compare the genetic codes of two groups e.g. people with a disease, and people without - in order to work out why some people succumb to disease, or how the disease itself works. Another approach is to look at which genes are turned on or off, and how much of a particular protein is made from a specific gene when someone gets sick (gene expression).
This is all hugely helpful for advancing our understanding of diseases and for improving medicine - and we can do the same for non-humans too.
A nice paper from the Rosenblum lab looked at which genes were expressed (read and turned into proteins) differently when two frog species were infected with the deadly chytrid fungus. From this experiment they gained a better understanding of how the fungus kills amphibians (disruption of skin function) and showed that the amphibians weren't launching a strong immune response.
We've been doing the same thing for Ranavirus and chytrid in the Common frog - looking at which genes are read differently when a frog is infected, and how this differs between diseases. It looks like there is a solid immune response to chytrid (not surprising as this species is pretty resilient to this fungus), but a lower immune response to Ranavirus (which is very lethal to this species).
We've submitted the paper for publication and will do a more detailed blog post once the work has gone through peer review. Hopefully this work will give us a better understanding of amphibian immunity, and why some individuals or species are more susceptible or resistant to each pathogen. This could be useful for working out future conservation strategies - for example we could choose less susceptible individuals for captive breeding and reintroduction, or have a way of telling which species are the most vulnerable and need the most protection.