Genome Engineering

The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is the only carnivorous marsupial in the world, and is found only in Tasmania, Australia. In a collaboration between Australia, the USA and Denmark, researchers have sequenced the genome of two Tasmanian devils.

Source: Wayne McLean (jgritz)

The research, published in PNAS and at the Tasmanian Devil Genome Project, shows a low genetic diversity within the Tasmanian devil population, but this predates the invasion of the facial cancer that is decimating the species.

Many Tasmanian devils suffer from devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), a transmissible facial cancer that arises from Schwann nerve cells and is transmitted by biting, mating or touching. The cancer kills in nine weeks, and has cut the population by 60%. In research published in January 2010, the tumours were found to be genetically distinct from their hosts, but genetically identical with each other. This led to development of a diagnostic test.

The genome data could help preserve the Tasmanian devils by estimating the number of healthy animals that need to be kept isolated from the cancer in order to repopulate Tasmania if the disease was allowed to ‘burn itself out’ in the general population. It is possible that the entire population could be infected by 2016.

The researchers also sequenced the tumour, to seek clues about why the Tasmanian devil’s immune system does not recognize the cancer as non-self, and to determine whether it could jump between marsupial species.

The Tasmanian devil is perhaps best known outside Tasmania as Taz, a Looney Tunes cartoon character!