A researcher at the California Institute of Technology claims: the level of correlation between the human and chimpanzee genomes is 95% and not 98.5% as was commonly thought; The next step: to locate the genetic differences within the DNA
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A new genetic study indicates the possibility that the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are greater than scientists had previously thought. The research may advance the understanding of human evolution, and the origin of the split of humans from the great apes during it.
Until now, biologists believed that the level of correlation between the human and chimpanzee genomes is 98.5 percent identical. But Roy Britten, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology, claims in a study published last week that a new technique of comparing the genes of the two species raises a genetic correlation level of only about 95 percent.
The new findings were obtained using a state-of-the-art computer program that compared the human genes with those of the chimpanzees. Although the software examined only about a quarter of the genetic material, Britten concluded that the differences reach at least a rate of 3.9 percent. The findings led him to the conclusion that there is a significant genetic difference between the sexes, at a rate of about five percent.
The new study, published this week in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, may help scientists in the study of the split of species during evolution. "A large part of the genes included in those five percent is not significant," Britten pointed out. "The next step in the research is to find where the significant genetic differences between the sexes are located - within the DNA."
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