Human Molecular Genetics 2 Flashcards
What is comparative genomics
To discover what is common and what is different
What are things in common among genomes called
Things in common are called conserved, and may encode biology in common between species
What encodes organism specific biology
Differences in comparative genomics
How are sequences compared
Lining them up next to each other and marking each point where sequences are the same
Called “aligning”
What are likely associated with genomic differences within a species
Disease
Characteristics of an individual
Evolutionary history
What can be learnt by comparing genome of an organism with others
What sort of genes they have
How differences between species arise
Relationships between species
What is associated with ancient DNA
DNA from dead things can remain in the environment
DNA degrades, and is masked by modern DNA
Bases are also modified as they degrade, sometimes changing the sequence
Ancient DNA has been used to determine relationships of extinct animals like moa and mammoths
What was discovered from the sequence of the Neanderthal genome
4 billion Neanderthal nucleotides
Identified and discount modern contamination
Gathered sequence from 3 individuals (probably)
Enough sequence to compare with modern human genome sequences from around the world
Identified bits o DNA that differ between Neanderthals and us
What were the “most amazing findings” of the Neanderthal genome
Some os us carry Neanderthal DNA
Modern humans from Europe and Asia carry Neanderthal DNA
Those from Africa show no signs of these alleles
Most likely explanation is that when modern humans met Neanderthals, they interbred
Do humans that contain Neanderthal DNA have different sets of genes
No, it just means that their DNA holds variants that arose in Neanderthals
What percent of the genome of non Africans is made up of variants that arose in Neanderthals
2-4%
What percentage of Denisovan DNA is found in the modern human genome
4-6%
