Here is a factoid about Daphnia and Ixodes genes relative to
insects: Daphnia has 21% of the best gene matches to human genes,
Ixodes is second with 16%, with the best insect (tribolium) at
12%, and the Dipterans (drosophila, mosquitoes) trail at 3% best
human gene matches. Considering other eukaroyte models
(weed, worm, yeast), Daphnia remains with 21% best gene matches,
but Ixodes falls to the insect level of 10%. This suggests
Daphnia retains the most ancestral eukaryotic genes.
This comes from blast-matching human and 5 other model gene sets
from Swissprot to 14 arthropod gene sets. It includes 20000 human
genes, 16000 mouse, 9000 weed, 7000 yeast, and 3000 worm genes.
Arthropod genes are those used at
http://arthropods.eugenes.org/arthropods/orthologs/
-- Don Gilbert
-- d.gilbert--bioinformatics--indiana-u--bloomington-in-47405
-- gilbertd from indiana.edu--http://marmot.bio.indiana.edu/
