Research Wins in Genome Rat Race

Thursday’s publication of a draft mouse genome was heralded with joy, but another rodent is only a whisker behind.

Scientists of the International Rat Genome Sequencing Consortium announced on Nov. 25 a completed draft of the rat genome.

“The vast majority of all the therapeutics that we take have been tested and developed using rats,” said Howard Jacob, director of the human and molecular genetics center at Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

“I love the mouse,” he said, but rats are better suited for studies on behavior, addiction, diabetes, kidney disease and hypertension, helped along by inbred strains such as the “spontaneously hypertensive rat” and the “salt-sensitive rat.”

The rat genome hasn’t been analyzed, but it is larger than the mouse genome and smaller than the human one, said Richard Gibbs, professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

-- Rosie Mestel