This is the blog for GW students taking Human Evolutionary Genetics. This site is for posting interesting tidbits on: the patterns and processes of human genetic variation;human origins and migration; molecular adaptations to environment, lifestyle and disease; ancient and forensic DNA analyses; and genealogical reconstructions.

GWHEG figure

GWHEG figure

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Interspecies Epigenetic Comparison


Researchers studied CpG islands and methylation sites on chromosomes 21 and 22 in both humans and chimpanzees. It is believed that these differences in methylation cause minute transcriptional differences, resulting in small phenotypic changes. Interestingly, many of the genes showing interspecific differences are those that affect disease in humans, such as the Alzheimer's-associated APP, which was found to be more heavily methylated at exon 7 in humans. The ramifications of this study are as-yet unclear, particularly because manifestation of the disease is either markedly different or nonexistent in non-human primates.

Source: Click Here! (Journal of Human Genetics, 2013)

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