Chimps \'r\' not us: brain DNA expression (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 22:01 (1233 days ago) @ David Turell

New studies of this effect:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201216085039.htm

"With only 1 percent difference, the human and chimpanzee protein-coding genomes are remarkably similar. Understanding the biological features that make us human is part of a fascinating and intensely debated line of research. Researchers have developed a new approach to pinpoint adaptive human-specific changes in the way genes are regulated in the brain.

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"To explain what sets human apart from their ape relatives, researchers have long hypothesized that it is not so much the DNA sequence, but rather the regulation of the genes (i.e. when, where and how strongly the gene is expressed), that plays the key role. However, precisely pinpointing the regulatory elements which act as 'gene dimmers' and are positively selected is a challenging task that has thus far defeated researchers (see box).

"Marc Robinson-Rechavi, Group Leader at SIB and study co-author says: "To be able to answer such tantalizing questions, one has to be able identify the parts in the genome that have been under so called 'positive' selection [see box]. The answer is of great interest in addressing evolutionary questions, but also, ultimately, could help biomedical research as it offers a mechanistic view of how genes function."

"Researchers at SIB and the University of Lausanne have developed a new method which has enabled them to identify a large set of gene regulatory regions in the brain, selected throughout human evolution. Jialin Liu, Postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study explains: "We show for the first time that the human brain has experienced a particularly high level of positive selection, as compared to the stomach or heart for instance. This is exciting, because we now have a way to identify genomic regions that might have contributed to the evolution of our cognitive abilities!"

"To reach their conclusions, the two researchers combined machine learning models with experimental data on how strongly proteins involved in gene regulation bind to their regulatory sequences in different tissues, and then performed evolutionary comparisons between human, chimpanzee and gorilla. "We now know which are the positively selected regions controlling gene expression in the human brain. And the more we learn about the genes they are controlling, the more complete our understanding of cognition and evolution, and the more scope there will be to act on that understanding," concludes Marc Robinson-Rechavi."

Comment: it has been obvious that we are very different from chimps despite the one percent DNA difference in coding bases. It is in 3-D relationships and gene expression controls in the non-coding areas. In teh past I have put here an estimate that the real difference approaches 20%.

https://www.agnosticweb.com/%22http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/...