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Functional genomics in the Aspergilli
Several species of Aspergilli (a group of filamentous fungi, related to brewers'
yeast) are used as hosts for production of economically valuable proteins in the
biotechnology industry. However, yields of these proteins from other organisms
are much lower than that of native proteins.
In order to improve yields, I am aiming to improve the
understanding of the how proteins are secreted by
investigating the expression of genes under different
conditions, using so-called transcriptome analysis.
'Microarray technology' enables measurement of
levels of thousands of gene-encoding sequences
simultaneously.
Whole genome sequencing of several Aspergilli species has recently been completed, enabling us to predict the function of genes based on DNA sequence of these and other related organisms.
A small portion of a microarray or 'gene-chip', each spot represents
a gene, the coloured dyes indicate how genes are effected by the
experimental condition, red spots are genes that are upegulated,
green for those down-regulated and yellow are unchanged.
It is hoped that this holistic approach will help to improve our understanding of how genes are secreted.
More information
The Aspergillus website - www.aspergillus.man.ac.uk
Aspergillus nidulans database - www-genome.wi.mit.edu
Microarrays - www.gene-chips.com
GAPSIA project - www.biomed2.man.ac.uk/GAPSIA
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