Identifying human disease genes in Drosophila

Abstract

Geneticists have long known that humans share many similar genes with the fruit fly, but just how alike we are was not clear until the completion of the Drosophila genome. Now, Ethan Bier and his group at the University of California at San Diego have identified 548 Drosophila genes that are so similar to genes involved in 714 human genetic disorders that they could have occurred by chance only one time in 10 billion. The diseases fell into essentially every major category, including neurological, immunological, cardiovascular, auditory, visual, developmental and metabolic disorders, as well as many forms of cancer, giving medical researchers a head start in searching for models for these disorders and a new way to investigate the function of the genes implicated. ‘Most people don't think of studying blindness, or hearing in Drosophila,’ says Lawrence Reiter, one of the researchers. ‘But human genetics has hit a wall with regards to function. And the fly turns out to be an ideal model genetic system for analyzing genes and placing them in the context of known genetic pathways.’ [Reiter, L.T. et al. (2001) Genome Res. 11, 1114–1125] PL