Scientists have gone beyond finding Nemo, they've now mapped its entire genome

If finding Nemo was a challenge before, it could now be a cakewalk – at least for scientists. An international team of researchers has mapped the entire genome of the species of ‘orange clownfish’ – star of the Disney classic, Finding Nemo. Orange clownfish are an ‘ideal subject for genome mapping’ in the view of Professor Philip Munday, co-author of the study, from the Coral Reef Studies Center at James Cook University. The new clownfish genome database was put together using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technology. The resulting map? Munday describes it as ‘the world’s biggest jigsaw puzzle’. The study has found that orange clownfish have roughly 27,000 genes that code for some protein or the other in the fish. This hasn’t put off researchers. [caption id=“attachment_5167371” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] An orange clownfish, the star of Disney’s Finding Nemo, in its coral reef habitat. Image courtesy: NemoGenome Database[/caption] In fact, Nemo’s brood of fish, Amphiprion percula, is not just the most popular reef fish on Earth – it is also the most widely studied, according to a report by the university press. “This species has been central to ground-breaking research in the ecological, environmental and evolutionary aspects of reef fishes,” Munday says. One area of study that clownfish are a go-to model for studying is the process of sex change in fish. The fish has helped scientists understand how reef fish disperse their spawn, and how their response to predators is impaired by more acidic ocean environments, Munday explains. “(The data) provides an essential blueprint for understanding every aspect of the reef fish’s biology,” Dr Robert Lehmann, lead author of the study from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, said. The effort to map the entire genome of orange clownfish gives the scientific community some invaluable data. In particular, it opens up opportunities to look at how environmental changes could be affecting fish at a genetic level. The study’s findings were published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources on 11 September.