Today in Nature our recent research studying basal-like breast cancer as compared to normal DNA, a subsequent brain metastasis, and a xenograft derived from the primary tumor (a xenograft is the implantation of a portion of the tumor biopsy into the fatty tissue of an immunodeficient mouse) was published along with an commentary by Joe Gray. Surprisingly, while the xenograft was derived from the primary tumor, its mutational profile had many characteristics similar to that of the brain metastasis. This finding indicates that mutations required for successful transplantation of a tumor into a mouse are perhaps similar to those required for the formation of metastasis (and provide insights into why some tumor types are not prone to metastasis and fail to grow xenografts). The article also represents the first publication of the complete sequence of an African-American female.

You can find news coverage of the article and its findings at KWMU, BusinessWeek, News24, GenomeWeb, and the WU Record (includes video).

The zebra finch reference genome and several companion papers are being published today in Nature and Genome Research. The zebra finch is a model for human vocal development and it is hoped that a better understanding of its genome and the genes involved in learning song can shed light on how humans learn language. These learnings may be helpful to researchers studying diseases that slow language development such as autism. Wes Warren of The Genome Center led the consortium to sequence the reference genome. Coverage of the publications can be found at the BBC, ABC, CBS, NPR/KWMU, The Independent, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, GenomeWeb, and WU Record (includes a video).

Today, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis announced a joint Pediatric Cancer Genome Project. This project aims to sequence tumor and normal genomes from over 600 pediatric cancer patients over three years. There is a press conference today (right now) at the National Press Club in Washington, DC (click on the 10 a.m. item in the DayBook on the left-hand side of the page). St. Jude’s will be supplying the tissue samples and The Genome Center will be doing all of the whole-genome sequencing on the samples. Genomic analysis will be done jointly between WU and St. Jude’s. It’s an ambitious project and personally I am very excited to be a part of it. You can find more coverage of the project in the press at the WU NewsRoom, GenomeWeb, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, USA Today, Memphis’ The Commercial Appeal, KWMU (local NPR station), CBC, and the St. Louis Business Journal. You can find video interviews with some of the principles on the project’s multimedia web site.

Update: I have added links to press coverage as it has become available (and will continue to do so).

Chalk another one up for the corn lobby (damn those Iowa caucuses!), the maize genome has been published. More seriously, this maize genome reference sequence, much like the human genome reference sequence, provides a foundation for truly revolutionary research into the relationship between genotypes and specific traits and, since genetic engineering is slightly more acceptable in corn than humans, developing strains of corn that can thrive in, for example, warmer, drier climates. The Genome Center led the sequencing effort and collaborated with several institutions on the analysis, resulting in 13 companion papers published in Science and PLoS Genetics. The sequencing was quite a challenge because of the highly repetitive nature of corn’s tetraploid (there are four copies of each chromosome as compared to the diploid (two copies) human genome) genome. There is a lot of coverage in the popular press, including Scientific American, Popular Science, and, of course, Farm and Dairy.