Next Generation Genomics Lecture at CPMB

For the First time, genome of a polar alga, Coccomyxa subellipsoidea, sequenced fully.

Life is diverse and life exists in every part of the earth including the most extreme habitats. One such extreme habitat is the polar regions. There is poor understanding of the adaptive mechanisms used by polar organisms to function under extreme cold conditions.  More than 30 psychrophylic microbial genomes have been fully sequenced and these  Psychrophilic prokaryotes were found to possess various adaptive strategies for survival in cold environments, including cold-induced desaturation of fatty acids in membrane lipids, protective mechanisms against increased amounts of solubilized oxygen and ROS, synthesis of antifreeze lipoproteins and glycoproteins, and global change in amino acid composition of encoded proteins to decrease protein structural rigidity.

For the first time  the genome of  a polar eukaryotic  unicellular green alga  Coccomyxa subellipsoidea (C169) has  been sequenced by  a team of  Researchers from  Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology (France), University of Nebraska (USA)  DOE Joint Genome Institute (USA), University of Rostock (Germany), Hiroshima University (Japan) and Georgia Tech Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics (USA).

Analysis of the 48.8 MB genome of this alga (for comparison (approximate ): Human genome size-3000 mb, E.coli genome size 4.5 MB, Rice genome size 370 MB) revealed that like the psychrophylic  microbes sequenced, this eukaryotic alga is also possessing special features

BREAKTHROUGH DISCOVERY: Neonatal genome sequencing for mutation detection

Non-invasive prenatal diagnostics analysis is desired for detection of  inherited mutations and common polymorphisms.  But, proper methods were not available  for doing this.   A new method has been discovered  by researchers from University of Washington (USA),  University of Bari (Italy),  Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (USA), University of Washington School of Medicine (USA),  University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (USA), Seattle Children’s Research Institute (USA) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA) combines   genome sequencing of two parents, genome-wide maternal haplotyping,

What is Cancer Genome Atlas ?

Cancer genome atlas is a very important project aiming to map all genomic variations associated with different cancers and create a comprehensive atlas. This was initiated by The National Cancer Institute (USA)and the National Human Genome Research Institute (USA) and is being carried out by a network of more than 100 researchers at many

Germline low-methylated regions are more prone for structural mutation than methylated regions

The human genome contains many loci with high incidence of structural mutations, including insertions and deletions of chromosomal segments. This excessive mutability has accelerated evolution and contributed to human disease but has yet to be explained. 


Segments of DNA repeated in low-copy numbers (LCRs) have been previously implicated in promoting structural mutability in specific disease-associated loci. Lack of methylation (hypo-methylation) of genomic DNA has been previously associated with high structural mutability in gibbons and in human cancer cells, but the association with structural mutability in the human germline has not been explored. 


A recent study carried out by Scientists from