Model organisms

Mus musculus.

This mouse is popular for its anatomical and physiological similarity with humans. However, the main advantage is the fact that the mouse and human genomes are very similar. From the 4000 studied genes, there are less than 10 that would be only present in one of the organisms. This makes mice the perfect genetic model. If a mutated gene is found in a person with a disease, we can introduce the gene mutation into the mouse model and observe the consequences of this disruption. By this we would understand the mechanism how the disease arises. Furthermore, we can uncover the function of a gene by switching it off in mice and observing what changes. To conclude, mouse is beneficial for the study of genetic reasons for human diseases.

Mice have their issues as well. They are quiet expensive to maintain, but their main disadvantage is their long lifespan. It makes the mice a bad model for studying the biology of ageing and diseases linked to ageing. As their lifespan is 2-3 years, researchers need to wait at least to years to obtain results. Interestingly, the most demanding model for ageing would be primates, for whose results one would need to wait for decades. In comparison to primates, mice still seem like a good model. Mice experiment are frequently found during clinical trials in order to understand the drug functioning.

Drosophila melanogaster

The fly is much smaller, yet common in genetic laboratories. its short lifespan brings her an advantage as during a short period of time researchers can obtain lots of datas about many offspring and generations. Furthermore, one female would have thousands of eggs and provide researchers with lots of data.

Literature says that up to 75% genes which cause human diseases can be found in drosophila as well. Even though the genetic similarity is incomplete, it still helps us understand the biological processes applied in human diseases. Drosophila is easy to maintain, cheap and does not require much alimentation. It is often used for the embryonic development research.

Schizosaccharomyces pombe & cerevisiae

Yeast are one of the most simple eukaryotes. Their not as similar to humans as the previous organisms, but there are some important common features. In contrast to humans, Yeast are a unicellular organism, however, the cell structure is comparable. It is often used for the study of cell signalling which is the cellular response so external stimuli. It is known that upon an environment change the cell reacts by switching on or off some of her genes. These switchings and signals can be further studied in order to understand cell response. Moreover, yeast is used in research of basic biological concepts such as cell cycle or sexual differentiation.

Furthermore, this model organism is often used in cancer research as the mentioned signalling pathways and cell cycle are often mutated in cancer cells. By studying these mechanisms in both healthy and cancer cells, we can understand what goes wrong in cancer cells and find good therapeutic targets.
Last but not least, yeast is simple to work with, and its genes can be easily modified.

There are lots of different model organisms, so are research groups trying to understand the human body. Let us hope that the new scientific generation will be able to make some ground-breaking revelations in the future. For now, however, we can at least understand what model organisms are.