Why Are Chimps Still Chimps?

2012 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman A. Johnson ◽  
James J. Smith ◽  
Briana Pobiner ◽  
Caitlin Schrein
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Evolution ◽  
Comparative Genomics ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
As If

Teachers may be posed with such questions as, "If we evolved from chimps, why are there still chimps?" We provide teachers with answers to this and related questions in the context of the latest genetic, fossil, and behavioral evidence. We also provide references they can use to further students' understanding of human evolution and evolution in general. In the process, we highlight recent discoveries in paleontology, molecular evolution, and comparative genomics. Modern chimps and humans shared a now extinct common ancestor that was neither a chimp nor a human – in other words, humans did not evolve from chimps – and, though chimps are humans' closest living relatives, we are characterized by distinct evolutionary histories.

Molecular Evolution of the CPP-like Gene Family in Plants: Insights from Comparative Genomics of Arabidopsis and Rice

2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zefeng Yang ◽  
Shiliang Gu ◽  
Xuefeng Wang ◽  
Wenjuan Li ◽  
Zaixiang Tang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Evolution ◽  
Comparative Genomics ◽  
Gene Family

scholarly journals The Impact of 'Anthropotechnology' on Human Evolution

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Blad ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Genetic Effects ◽  
Evolutionary Path ◽  
Peter Sloterdijk ◽  
The Impact

From the time that they diverged from their common ancestor, chimpanzees and humans have had a very different evolutionary path. It seems obvious that the appearance of culture and technology has increasingly alienated humans from the path of natural selection that has informed chimpanzee evolution. According to philosopher Peter Sloterdijk any type of technology is bound to have genetic effects. But to what extent do genomic comparisons provide evidence for such an impact of ‘anthropotechnology’ on our biological evolution?

Evolutionary Analyses of Protein Interaction Networks

2009 ◽  
pp. 169-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Makino ◽  
Aoife McLysaght
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Evolution ◽  
Comparative Genomics ◽  
Protein Interaction ◽  
Protein Interaction Networks ◽  
Evolutionary Rates ◽  
Interaction Networks ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Ancestral Gene ◽  
Protein Protein Interaction ◽  
A Genome

This chapter introduces evolutionary analyses of protein interaction networks and of proteins as components of the networks. The authors show relationships between proteins in the networks and their evolutionary rates. For understanding protein-protein interaction (PPI) divergence, duplicated genes are often compared because they are derived from a common ancestral gene. In order to reveal evolutionary mechanisms acting on the interactome it is necessary to compare PPIs across species. Investigation of co-localization of interacting genes in a genome shows that PPIs have an important role in the maintenance of a physical link between neighboring genes. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce methodologies for analyzing PPI data and to describe molecular evolution and comparative genomics insights gained from such studies.

scholarly journals Selection for Decreased BRCA2 Functional Activity in Homo sapiens After Divergence from the Chimpanzee-Human Last Common Ancestor

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinlong Huang ◽  
Yi Zhong ◽  
Alvin P. Makohon-Moore ◽  
Travis White ◽  
Maria Jasin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Functional Activity ◽  
Protein Function ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Cancer Genes ◽  
Dna Double Strand Breaks ◽  
Bioinformatics Analyses

AbstractHumans have an increased incidence of epithelial neoplasia compared to non-human primates. We performed a comparative analysis of 21 non-human primate genomes and 54 ancient human genomes to identify variations in known cancer genes that may explain this difference. We identified 299 human-specific fixed non-silent single nucleotide polymorphisms. Bioinformatics analyses for functional consequences identified a number of variants predicted to have altered protein function, one of which was located at the most evolutionarily conserved domain of human BRCA2. This variant, in which a polar threonine residue replaces a hydrophobic methionine residue to codon 2662 within the DSS1 binding domain, decreases the interactions of BRCA2 with other proteins, specifically the binding of BRCA2 and RAD51, as well as the repairing ability of cells for DNA double-strand breaks. We conclude that a 20% reduction in BRCA2 DNA repair ability was positively selected for in the course of human evolution.One Sentence SummaryReduction of BRCA2 functional activity has been selected for during human evolution since the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor.

scholarly journals The Most Recent Common Ancestor of Modern Humans was Born in Eurasia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
vicente cabrera
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Genome Sequencing ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Recent Common Ancestor ◽  
Whole Genome ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Vision

Ancient DNA has given a new vision to the recent history of human evolution. However, by always relying on the information provided by whole genome sequencing, some relevant relationships between modern humans and its archaic relatives have been misinterpreted by hybridization and recombination causes. In contrast, the congruent phylogeny, obtained from non-recombinant uniparental markers, indicates that humans and Neanderthals are sister subspecies, and that the most recent common ancestor of modern humans was not of African origin but Eurasian.

scholarly journals The Quest for Orthologs benchmark service and consensus calls in 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (W1) ◽  
pp. W538-W545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian M Altenhoff ◽  
Javier Garrayo-Ventas ◽  
Salvatore Cosentino ◽  
David Emms ◽  
Natasha M Glover ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Genomics ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Common Input ◽  
Reference Set ◽  
Input Dataset ◽  
Model Organism Databases

Abstract The identification of orthologs—genes in different species which descended from the same gene in their last common ancestor—is a prerequisite for many analyses in comparative genomics and molecular evolution. Numerous algorithms and resources have been conceived to address this problem, but benchmarking and interpreting them is fraught with difficulties (need to compare them on a common input dataset, absence of ground truth, computational cost of calling orthologs). To address this, the Quest for Orthologs consortium maintains a reference set of proteomes and provides a web server for continuous orthology benchmarking (http://orthology.benchmarkservice.org). Furthermore, consensus ortholog calls derived from public benchmark submissions are provided on the Alliance of Genome Resources website, the joint portal of NIH-funded model organism databases.

Cultural Transmission from the Last Common Ancestor to the Levallois Reducers

2019 ◽  
pp. 251-277
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Lycett
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
False Positive ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
False Negatives

Given the gap between ape and human cultural capacities, the question of what we can infer about evolving cultural capacities during the course of human evolution presents itself. Tom Wynn has stressed the importance of a comparative (cross-species) approach and the idea of inferring only the minimal capacities required to explain archaeological phenomena in cognitive terms. In this chapter, these principles are applied to infer what can reasonably be determined about cultural transmission capacities in extinct hominins from the last common ancestor to the producers of Levallois. Although much remains to be learned, and a provisional model must caution against false negatives and false positive attributions, the approach yields reasonable inferences regarding our evolving cultural capacities over the long stretch of time from the end of the Miocene through to the later Middle Pleistocene. This situation also leads to a position where possible avenues of future enquiry might usefully be identified.

scholarly journals Molecular Evolution of Auxin-Mediated Root Initiation in Plants

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1387-1393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Yu ◽  
Yuyun Zhang ◽  
Wu Liu ◽  
Hua Wang ◽  
Shaoting Wen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Evolution ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Seed Plants ◽  
Root Initiation ◽  
Ceratopteris Richardii ◽  
Molecular Pathway ◽  
Wox Genes ◽  
The Common ◽  
Evolutionary Route ◽  
Root Types

Abstract The root originated independently in euphyllophytes (ferns and seed plants) and lycophytes; however, the molecular evolutionary route of root initiation remains elusive. By analyses of the fern Ceratopteris richardii and seed plants, here we show that the molecular pathway involving auxin, intermediate-clade WUSCHEL-RELATED HOMEOBOX (IC-WOX) genes, and WUSCHEL-clade WOX (WC-WOX) genes could be conserved in root initiation. We propose that the “auxin>IC-WOX>WC-WOX” module in root initiation might have arisen in the common ancestor of euphyllophytes during the second origin of roots, and that this module has further developed during the evolution of different root types in ferns and seed plants.

scholarly journals Decoding the Molecular Evolution of Human Cognition Using Comparative Genomics

2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriyoshi Usui ◽  
Marissa Co ◽  
Genevieve Konopka
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Evolution ◽  
Comparative Genomics ◽  
Human Cognition
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