Database Details Functions of More than 20,000 Genes

An international consortium of scientists has identified and banked detailed functional information for more than 20,000 human genes, establishing a connection between DNA sequence and gene function and products, and to the clinical effects that each gene function has upon human health.  These findings come three years after the announcement of the completion of the sequencing of the human genome.

Ranajit Chakraborty, PhD, Robert A. Kehoe Professor, UC Department of Environmental Health, led one of the many work groups in this study and completed much of the preparatory work  from  the Center for Genome Information at the UC Medical Center. 

“These findings will have an important impact on researchers, as it will help them to understand of the location, function and evolutionary origin of disease-causing genes in the human genome,” said Dr. Chakraborty.  “Many at the UC Medical Center alone will benefit from this research, and the sequel to this project in which our goals include annotating the disease genes of the human genome.”

The study, reported in the April 20 open access journal

Public Library of Science Biology

, has taken over two years to complete, and is expected to set the standard for analysis of gene expression and human diseases worldwide.  Dr. Takashi Gojobori of the Japan Biological Information Research Centre in Tokyo, Japan, (also of DNA Data Bank of Japan at National Institute of Genetics) led the international consortium called Human Full-Length cDNA Annotation Invitational or H-Invitational.  More than 150 researchers from 40 institutions participated.  The public H-Invitational database is available online at

https://www.jbirc.aist.go.jp/hinv/index.jsp

.