Why is it needed?
The DGEMap project finished in July 2009 but activities are continuing via the Human Developmental Studies Network (HUDSEN). Please visit the HUDSEN website with links to the electronic atlas of the developing human brain and human spatial gene expression database for the latest resources and information. These web pages have been left up as a record only.
"DGEMap team aims to evaluate the most effective ways of overcoming challenges faced by the community of scientists involved in the analysis of gene expression in early human development."
Characterising gene expression patterns is a crucial part of understanding the molecular determinants of development and the role of genes in disease. However, this exciting area suffers from difficulties, crucially, in sourcing and maintaining collections of material suitable for gene expression studies, from difficulties in developing expertise in both biological and informatics areas and from difficulties in amassing and making accessible data from many sources.
Sourcing and maintaining collections
"Establishing and maintaining suitable collections of human developmental material requires time, significant resources and knowledge that a single laboratory will find difficult to sustain."
Human developmental material is scarce for the obvious reason that it is of human origin. Substantial archive collections exist, however access to them may be limited and it is often impossible to carry out tissue in situ hybridisation because standard fixation methods result in RNA degradation.
Ongoing collections are needed in order to provide suitable material and, in addition, samples can then be characterised for stage, karyotype and morphology, which is not necessarily done in a systematic manner in all collections.
Because cultural and social attitudes vary considerably between countries, the ethical framework for collecting and using human developmental material across Europe needs to be carefully evaluated and ethical aspects of the research must be carefully considered.
Developing expertise
This requires the technical capacities to generate high quality and reliable tissue in situ hybridisation, data storage and data visualisation. It also implies a highly multidisciplinary knowledge base with expertise in human developmental biology, pathology, molecular biology technology and informatics."Given the rarity and the sensitive nature of the material, it is important to optimise its use and maximise the information obtained."
Amassing and making data accessible
When trying to integrate gene expression information, the challenge is to deal with very complex sets of data held in different labs, some of it perhaps incomplete or not easy to interpret with different sets of standards. We need to have user-friendly databases enabling an optimum sharing of the information gathered."Storing, retrieving and analysing large quantities of data is the challenge of modern life science."
Finally, there is a clear need for systematically correlating the data obtained in human with the large amount of data on gene expression obtained in model organisms such as the mouse.
"The scientific community, involved in life science in general and human development and disease in particular, urgently needs to develop a scientific basis for extrapolation from animal models to human."