Slashdot Mirror
Humanity Gene Found?
Banana_Republican writes "Nature is reporting that that multiple copies of a mystery gene may be what makes us human. It appears that humans have multiple carbon copies of a recently discovered gene that other primates lack. In particular, one sequence not so romantically or emotionally termed 'DUF1220' was mentioned . Humans carry 212 copies of DUF1220, whereas chimps have 37 copies, and monkeys have only 30 copies. Apparently the current thinking is that this gene is responsible for coding important areas of brain function."
Not that it's going to stop all the Simpsons jokes, but DUF just stands for Domain of Unknown Function. It's not a name so much as a placeholder. There are lots of DUFs.
I sent a link of the Slashdot article to my brother, with the requisite Duff joke. He responded by saying that DUF1220 is more common in rabbits, elephants, and some other stuff than it is in humans.
3 1393&hgt.out2=+3x+&position=chr1%3A142191957-14219 9015
I for one welcome our new armadillo overlords.
http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTracks?hgsid=770
The Abstract of paper:
Extreme gene duplication is a major source of evolutionary novelty. A genome-wide survey of gene copy number variation among human and great ape lineages revealed that the most striking human lineage-specific amplification was due to an unknown gene, MGC8902, which is predicted to encode multiple copies of a protein domain of unknown function (DUF1220). Sequences encoding these domains are virtually all primate-specific, show signs of positive selection, and are increasingly amplified generally as a function of a species' evolutionary proximity to humans, where the greatest number of copies (212) is found. DUF1220 domains are highly expressed in brain regions associated with higher cognitive function, and in brain show neuron-specific expression preferentially in cell bodies and dendrites.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!