pingouin at .u-strasbg.fr (Francois Jeanmougin) wrote:
>In article <Dtnn52.41E at murdoch.acc.virginia.edu>,
>caw9c at dayhoff.med.Virginia.EDU (Charles A. Whittaker) writes:
>>I have heard it said that humans and chimps are 98% identical
>>at the genetic level. Why then do chips look like chimps and
>>people look like people? What do you think would happen if you
>>replaced every bit of protein coding sequence in the chimp genome
>>with human coding sequence? In other words, is the difference in
>>appearance generated at the level of the 2% difference or somewhere
>>else?
>>>>just wondering
>>>>charlie
>>> Hi,
>> There are lot of genes in a mammalian genome, so that 2% can be
>sufficient to make the difference. If these differences are in developmental
>genes, then the effect of one mutation can be very important. Look at some
>human development deseases, caused by only one gene or just a gene
>translocation (movement on a chromosome or part of a chromosome).
>> Lot of genes are common for lot organism, if you look at the
>systems for energy production and basic gene transcription.
>> Last, I don't know how your 2% were determined and if it's true.
>> hope this helps,
> Francois.
Another question is about the distribution of the 2% differences. Is this a
general percentage (I guess) ? Are some genes more than 2 % different between
chimps and human ? (in developmental genes as suggest Francois).
In this case the "2% difference" is not very informative.
Au revoir
Xavier
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