The findings in the ambitious Zoonomia Project identified parts of the genome functionally important in people and other mammals and showed how certain mutations can cause disease. The project revealed the genetics of uncommon mammalian traits like hibernation and showed how the sense of smell varies widely.
The researchers said the findings on hibernation genetics could inform human.
“We’re taking advantage of the fact that there’s this massive biodiversity on this planet to actually understand ourselves and make new discoveries that are relevant to treating human diseases,” said Elinor Karlsson, director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-leader of the international consortium of researchers.
The findings, detailed in 11 studies published in the journal Science, involved placentals, by far the world’s most common mammalian assemblage, known for giving birth to well-developed babies, and not egg-laying monotremes or pouched marsupials.
The project examined most existing mammalian lineages, though only 4% of species. They ranged in size from the North Pacific right whale, at 59 feet (18 meters) long, to the bumblebee bat, at 1.2 inches (3 cm) long. Our closest evolutionary relatives – chimpanzees and bonobos – were included, along with the western lowland gorilla and Sumatran orangutan.
“Many of these elements are located close to genes involved in embryo development – a process that needs to be tightly controlled if it is to result in the development of a healthy and functioning animal,” said Uppsala University evolutionary geneticist Matthew Christmas, lead author of one of the papers.
“The human genome was sequenced more than 20 years ago and, despite that, it’s still really hard to understand what the functional elements are,” added consortium co-leader Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, a comparative genomics professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.
Ambitious genome project shows how humans fit with other mammals Scientists on Thursday unveiled the results of a project comparing the genomes of 240 mammal species – from aardvarks and aye-ayes to zebus and zebras, as well as people – to trace evolutionary changes spanning 100 million years, pinpointing genetic traits widely shared and those more uniquely human.
Scientists have extracted DNA from a piece of Balto’s underbelly skin from the well-preserved museum mount and sequenced the dog’s genome as part of an ambitious comparative mammalian genomic research project called Zoonomia. Ambitious genome project shows how humans fit with other mammals Scientists on Thursday unveiled the results of a project comparing the genomes of 240 mammal species – from aardvarks and aye-ayes to zebus and zebras, as well as people – to trace evolutionary changes spanning 100 million years, pinpointing genetic traits widely shared and those more uniquely human.
Scientists on Thursday unveiled the results of a project comparing the genomes of 240 mammal species – from aardvarks and aye-ayes to zebus and zebras, as well as people – to trace evolutionary changes spanning 100 million years, pinpointing genetic traits widely shared and those more uniquely human. The findings in the ambitious Zoonomia Project identified parts of the genome functionally important in people and other mammals and showed how certain mutations can cause disease. The project revealed the genetics of uncommon mammalian traits like hibernation and showed how the sense of smell varies widely.
