OGL recently added DNA samples from two unusual species: the elephant shark, a harmless fish with an odd trunk-like snout, and the Japanese lamprey, a parasitic fish with a rasping sucker mouth. What can these funky fish teach us? Our partners at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research in Singapore sequenced these genomes because they provide a glimpse into the evolutionary path that led to us.
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Our collaborator Dr. Byrappa Venkatesh with an elephant shark. (Credit: IMCB, A*STAR.)
| A Japanese lamprey. (Credit: IMCB, A*STAR.) |
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How would you survive without bones? Elephant sharks and lampreys get along fine using cartilage instead. Lampreys don't even have jaws!
Studying the DNA of these species can teach us where our familiar features came from and show us the creative solutions that our distant fish relatives use. For example, humans and elephant sharks use different sets of oxygen-carrying proteins. At first, lampreys seemed primitive because they don't have essential pieces of our immune system, but their DNA revealed that lampreys
actually use a different strategy to adapt to pathogens.
These types of comparisons, using diverse organisms, can suggest new avenues for medical research and offer unexpected solutions for biotechnology. Archiving the DNA samples at OGL makes these materials widely available for research inspired by these genetic insights.
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