Monday, May 21, 2007

Mice and men make livers differently

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: May 21, 2007

Summary:

Scientists often study mice as a model for human biology and disease, because their basic biological processes are assumed to be essentially the same as those of humans. But now, a team of MIT researchers has uncovered a surprising difference. In a study of gene regulation in mouse and human liver cells, they found that master regulatory proteins function in very different ways in mice and humans.