Imagine the year 2500. We have chosen twenty of our best and brightest to send to Mars. They have the mission to start a human colony there. Of-course that would mean breeding and generating more humans. But with only 20 people, the population might be genetically too small. Creating babies from genetically similar individuals, like cousins, can lead to birth defects. Within a few populations, intermixing might doom the entire project, just like inbreeding doomed the once powerful Habsburg Dynasty. How can we avoid this?
The question is not only critical to our hypothetical journey to Mars, but also to survival of critically endangered species. Very few individuals of hawksbill turtle, tigers and many other remain. How can we avoid in-breeding defects in such animals in near future. The answer to that might lie in the champions of regeneration, freshwater planarians. Planarians are known for their amazing capacity to regenerate a full animal from any part of their body. But also, as Longhua and colleagues found out, can avoid their genome from becoming similar after multiple rounds of in-breeding. How can these animals achieve such feat, please listen to Longhua to know more:
For more information, please refer to:
Widespread maintenance of genome heterozygosity in Schmidtea mediterranea.
Guo L., et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2016.
Further information can be found here:
The joy of figuring things out: a story of worms, haplotypes & genetic ancestry.
The question is not only critical to our hypothetical journey to Mars, but also to survival of critically endangered species. Very few individuals of hawksbill turtle, tigers and many other remain. How can we avoid in-breeding defects in such animals in near future. The answer to that might lie in the champions of regeneration, freshwater planarians. Planarians are known for their amazing capacity to regenerate a full animal from any part of their body. But also, as Longhua and colleagues found out, can avoid their genome from becoming similar after multiple rounds of in-breeding. How can these animals achieve such feat, please listen to Longhua to know more:
For more information, please refer to:
Widespread maintenance of genome heterozygosity in Schmidtea mediterranea.
Guo L., et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2016.
Further information can be found here:
The joy of figuring things out: a story of worms, haplotypes & genetic ancestry.
No comments:
Post a Comment