1) Studies of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and tiny worm (Caenorhabditis elegans) in the 1900s and 1960s revealed that genes lie on chromosomes and how a single egg develops into a complete animal. 2) The fruit fly and worm are now being used in the modENCODE project to map gene expression from egg to adult across development, which may provide insights into genetic disorders. 3) Preliminary findings from modENCODE show that genes are turned on and off in the same patterns and developmental stages in fruit flies, worms, and humans, controlled by histone marks, though more remains to be discovered.

1. T INY, VAST WINDOWS
INTO HUMAN DNA
NURS 3 2 0 SEPTEMBER 1 0 , 2 0 1 4
JEANET TE BELOY

2. H A V E Y O U E V E R H E A R D O F T H E S A Y I N G …
BIG THINGS CAN COME
FROM SMAL L PACKAGES?

3. LET ME BRING YOUR
MIND INTO A
L I TERAL LY SMAL LER
A S P E C T …
• Standard fruit fly and all the
other creepy crawlers out &
about such as the worm.

4. FROM THESE TWO SMAL L SPECIES
CAME GREAT DISCOVERY!
• 1900s: Studies on the fruit fly AKA Drosophila melanogaster
showed that our genes lie on chromosomes. As well as other
discoveries like why we sleep and how heart disease
develops.
• 1960s: The tiny worm AKA Caenorhabditis elegans made us
discover how a single egg gives rise to a complete animal.
Studies with the worm are still ongoing for such experiments
that include how our brains are wired and why we age.
BUT THERE’S MORE…

5. • The fruit fly & the work became a tag team and are
now opening doors to revelations such as how animals
develop from eggs to adults.
• Together it is called project modENCODE. It entails a
whole picture from the earliest stages of the egg to
adults.

6. Robert H. Waterston and all of his colleagues state
that “exploring the similarity may provide scientists
with new insights into genetic disorders and disease
like cancer” (Zimmer, 2014).

7. IN OTHER WORDS
• If they can get a whole picture of the miraculous event
from egg to adult they can further open the secrets of
how disorders and chaos come into fruition within our
bodies.

8. A L I T T LE BIO 1 0 1
• A gene contains information that a cell can use to
make a particular molecule. But an animal may only
use a given gene at a particular time in its life, or in a
particular organ.
• This is where histone marks come in. They can open
up a particular cell with a specific set of DNA to work.
In other words, it remains to be the key that unlocks a
specific cell to work in a particular area.

9. WHAT MODENCODE DID:
THEY TOOK
DETAI LED PICTURES
OF THE MOLECULAR
DANCE AND
COMPARED I T TO
THE 3 SPECIES.
( FRUI T F LY, WORM &
HUMANS. )

10. WHAT
MODENCODE
DISCOVERED:
• Genes turned on & off in the same
pattern, following a predictable rhythm.
• There are 16 set of genes that function
like this. However, they have not found
in particular what each of them do yet.
• Histone marks control DNA in much the
same in ALL 3 species.
• Different factors switched on the same
genes in different cells & at different
stages of development.
• Yet underneath the complexity, all 3
species follow a lot of the same rules
of regulating their genes!

11. “The potential of such data is enormous.”
–ALEXANDER STARK (GENOMICIST AT THE RESEARCH
INST I TUE OF MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY

12. But there is still more to be done. The most
important thing is that these small creatures who
have been around for centuries can tell us humans
about the intricacies and originalities of how our
genes leads to diseases.