Genome sequencing furthers pine beetle and cancer research
Steve Jones, 604.877.6083, steven_jones@sfu.ca, sjones@bcgsc.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
A research team co-led by Simon Fraser University professor Steven Jones has developed a new way of sequencing genomes. The researchers are using their novel method to advance knowledge about what causes mountain pine beetle infestations and cancer.
Jones is an SFU molecular biology and biochemistry professor, head of bioinformatics at the B.C. Cancer Agency’s (BCCA’s) Genome Sciences Centre and an SFU grad.
He and his colleagues at the BCCA and UBC have used novel computational approaches to identify quickly and cost effectively the genes and proteins that make up the so-called blue stain fungus.
The mountain pine beetle transmits this fungus (Grosmannia clavigera), which weakens pine trees by triggering and overwhelming their defence systems, further contributing to tree mortality. The fungus also stains the wood blue, making mountain pine beetle-infested wood less marketable.
“The study has much wider implications. What we have learned by assembling a small fungal genome allows us to scale up and now attack larger genomes,” says Jones. “The computational and genetic tools we have developed to understand how fungal genomes work are now being deployed to further knowledge about how cancer tumours work.”
The journal Genome Biology has published an article about the researchers’ development and application of their new approach to genome sequencing.
Jones says his team’s combination of molecular biological and computational techniques to decipher genome sequences “really helps establish British Columbia as one of the leading jurisdictions in genome science.”
Genome B.C., the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada, the B.C. Ministry of Forests, the Natural Resources Canada Genomics program and the B.C. Cancer Foundation are funding this research.
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