{"id":1394,"date":"2013-08-23T13:06:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T03:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1394"},"modified":"2013-07-30T19:26:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-30T09:26:22","slug":"team-maps-koala-genome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1394","title":{"rendered":"Team maps koala genome"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Koala_climbing_tree\"<\/a>In a joint project that is also likely to benefit the conservation of other threatened and endangered species, a team of researchers from the Australian Museum, the Queensland University of Technology, Australia Zoo, the University of New South Wales\u2019 Ramaciotti Centre, and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, recently announced it had achieved the \u2018holy grail\u2019 of understanding the response of koalas to the infectious diseases currently threatening their survival.\r\n\r\nThe initial draft of the koala genome sequence has identified genes implicated in the animals\u2019 diet as well as their immune systems, including the koala interferon gamma, or IFN-g gene, a chemical messenger that plays a key role in the marsupial\u2019s defence against cancer, viruses and intracellular bacteria.\r\n\r\nPeter Timms from QUT\u2019s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said the IFN-g gene was the key to finding a cure for chlamydia and koala retrovirus, and its discovery would make it possible to fully test the effectiveness of vaccines on wild populations of koalas.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe know koalas are infected with various strains of chlamydia, but we don\u2019t know why some animals go on to get severe clinical disease and some don\u2019t. We also know that genes such as IFN-g are very important for controlling chlamydial infections in humans and other animals. Identifying these in the koalas will be a major step forward in understanding and controlling diseases in this species,\u201d Timms said.\r\n\r\nRebecca Johnson from the Australian Museum\u2019s Australian Centre for Wildlife Genomics said tissue samples taken from several koalas\u00a0 had enabled 12,000 genes to be identified, but this number could increase, and the complete blueprint\u00a0 would have important implications for the future management of koala populations.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re working towards what we think is the complete set of 20,000, which is roughly the equivalent to humans. The koala is so interesting because they haven\u2019t had a common ancestor for 35 million years so now we can look at why they\u2019ve been so successful,\u201d Johnson said.\r\n\r\nJust one animal provided a wealth of information relating to the koala\u2019s immune system. Immune-related tissue samples taken from Birke, an animal who was euthanised following a dog attack, revealed sequences of at least 390 immune-related genes, according to Adam Polkinghome from QUT\u2019s School of Biomedical Sciences, whose team is currently trialling a chlamydia vaccine for koalas in south east Queensland.\r\n\r\n\u201cVirtually nothing is known about the immune system of the koala and the absence of information has been a major hindrance to our efforts to understand how chlamydia and KoRV infections lead to such debilitating disease in this native species,\u201d Polkinghome\u00a0 said.\r\n\r\nSince it found the \u2018holy grail\u2019 the QUT team has developed a molecular test to measure IFN-g expression in the blood of healthy and diseased koalas. This has already been applied to a small group of wild koalas taken to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital suffering occular and reproductive tract disease. The results will enable researchers gain a better understanding of koalas\u2019 complex immune system, and successfully treat and immunise vulnerable populations of the animal.\r\n\r\nThe genes, which only represent about 1.8 per cent of the total set identified in the tissues, were involved in B cell and T cell activation and antigen presentation \u2013 key components of the adaptive immune response suggesting that koalas have the capacity to protect themselves against microbial pathogens such as chlamydia.\r\n\r\n\u201cBy analysing this information we should be able to determine if KoRV is sitting harmlessly in these koalas or if it\u2019s potentially triggering cancer or resulting in mild chlamydia infections becoming a serious clinical disease,\u201d said Timms.\r\n\r\nDue to sequencing similarities shared by koalas and Tasmanian devils, researchers said there were implications in this close relationship of marsupials\u2019 immune genes for the conservation of other Australian wildlife. They are calling for further academic and financial support to ensure the project can continue under the Koala Genome Consortium, which is one of the first Australian teams to map a mammalian genome sequence. Despite animal genome sequencing typically being conducted in the country of origin, work on Australian species has largely been done in the US, or in other parts of the world.\r\n\r\nWhile the consortium contains more than 12 scientists, veterinarians and bioinformaticians, Timms said the team had only \u201cscratched the tip of the iceberg\u201d and the task required many more people to assist with analysing the data.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis project promises to benefit gene discovery and the development of immunological tools that will help us fight diseases in our other threatened and endangered wildlife species. Funding to date has resulted in a rich koala genetic bank, but it will fall short if we are to use this data to answer key koala survival questions,\u201d Polkinghome said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nANNE LAYTON-BENNETT<\/i>\r\n\r\nThe Australian Koala Genome Mapping Program was funded by QUT, The Australian Museum, Bioplatforms Australia, and the State and Federal Governments.<\/i>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a joint project that is also likely to benefit the conservation of other threatened and endangered species, a team of researchers from the Australian Museum, the Queensland University of Technology, Australia Zoo, the University of New South Wales\u2019 Ramaciotti Centre, and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, recently announced it had achieved the \u2018holy grail\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1067,1226,17,1224,1234,959,1232,1230,1227,1231,1233,1225,1228,1229,57],"class_list":["post-1394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-australia-zoo","tag-australian-museum","tag-dna","tag-genome","tag-genomics","tag-koala","tag-peter-timms","tag-port-macquarie-koala-hospital","tag-ramaciotti-centre","tag-rebecca-johnson","tag-samples","tag-sequence","tag-university-of-new-south-wales","tag-university-of-technology","tag-uq"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":1,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":402,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":402,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"In a joint project that is also likely to benefit the conservation of other threatened and endangered species, a team of researchers from the Australian Museum, the Queensland University of Technology, Australia Zoo, the University of New South Wales\u2019 Ramaciotti Centre, and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, recently announced it had achieved the \u2018holy grail\u2019 of understanding the response of..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"1067":{"name":"Australia Zoo","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=australia-zoo"},"1226":{"name":"Australian Museum","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=australian-museum"},"17":{"name":"DNA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=dna"},"1224":{"name":"genome","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=genome"},"1234":{"name":"genomics","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=genomics"},"959":{"name":"koala","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=koala"},"1232":{"name":"Peter Timms","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=peter-timms"},"1230":{"name":"Port Macquarie Koala Hospital","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=port-macquarie-koala-hospital"},"1227":{"name":"Ramaciotti Centre","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=ramaciotti-centre"},"1231":{"name":"Rebecca Johnson","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=rebecca-johnson"},"1233":{"name":"samples","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=samples"},"1225":{"name":"sequence","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=sequence"},"1228":{"name":"University of New South Wales","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=university-of-new-south-wales"},"1229":{"name":"University of Technology","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=university-of-technology"},"57":{"name":"UQ","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=uq"}},"comments_number":"1","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}