Functional Genomics and Rat Models

  1. Howard J. Jacob
  1. The Laboratory for Genetic Research, The Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226 USA

This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.

The 20th Century has seen a remarkable number of inventions and technological advances in virtually all aspects of human life and health care. Many areas of biomedical research have made great strides in unraveling the cause of human disease and in developing new therapies to counter, or at least improve, outcome from disease. However, the cause of the vast majority of common disease remains poorly defined. In the final year of the millennium, the release of the draft sequence of the human genome promises to bring in a new era for basic science research and, hopefully, unprecedented growth in our understanding of human disease. For this to occur there is a critical need to annotate the genomic sequence with gene function and basic biology. Typically, the view from the geneticist immediately turns to mouse, as the mammalian contributor. Yet, not all biologists are willing to convert to the mouse as their system of choice, in many cases because of the existence of better models. Although the mouse is undoubtedly going to play a major role in contributing to the annotation of gene function, other mammalian species will also make significant contributions. This Insight/Outlook piece focuses on the role the rat will play in annotating the genome in the functional genomics era.

The laboratory rat, Rattus norvegicus, was the first mammalian species domesticated for scientific research, with work dating back to before 1850 (Lindsey 1979). From this auspicious beginning, the rat has become the most widely studied experimental animal model for biomedical research. Since 1966 (the earliest year covered by the Medline database), nearly 500,000 research articles reporting the use of rats have been published, most focused on evaluating the biology and/or the pathobiology of the rat. In contrast to its central role in the study of behavior, biochemistry, neurobiology, …

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