Worm-powered advances in proteomics – a powerful tool for discovery

MRC geneservice announced today [24th September, 2003] the availability in the UK of a major new tool which will revolutionise proteomics, and hasten the characterisation of the proteins coded by each gene. Dr Marc Vidal and his team at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, USA have produced clones from Open Reading Frames (ORFs) of genes – protein-encoding nucleotide sequences – from the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. Whilst much is known about the sequence of genes, understanding what proteins each gene codes for has lagged behind.

Clones from Vidal’s laboratory of around 12,000 ORFs are now available, in an expression-ready format through MRC geneservice. This roughly represents 60% of C. elegans genes ready for use in functional studies of many species. It is expected that further clones will be made available. In addition, cloning of pooled amplimers facilitates representation of all splice forms for each gene, providing an excellent opportunity for teasing apart the different roles these isoforms play in gene function.

Having ORF clones available will be a key to further characterising the worm’s proteome through applications such as protein-protein interactions, gene knock-out and protein expression. The importance of C. elegans to understanding gene function was recognised by the award in 2002 of the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology to Sydney Brenner, John Sulston and H Robert Horvitz , a transatlantic collaboration between Cambridge and MIT.

This major step forward for UK researchers compliments other tools for the discovery process such as RNA expression profiling, DNA sequencing and genetic mapping services available at MRC geneservice.

Dr Tom Weaver, Chief Executive of MRC geneservice said, “This is an important example where a whole-genome proteomic approach has been employed for systematically examining the function of many thousands of genes from a model organism. It is our goal at MRC geneservice to provide affordable and unrestricted access to high quality functional genomic resources like this for the benefit of the research community.”