Thanks to the current genomics revolution, biologists have new tools to document the minute changes a gene undergoes when it evolves from a simple organism to a more complex one. In a study published in the April 26 issue of the journal Science, researchers from Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley compared the genomes of a fungus and a worm - two very different species that share thousands of similar genes, which in turn produce thousands of similar proteins.
``There`s been a flood of genetic information recently,`` said Stanford graduate student Aaron E. Hirsh, lead co-author of the Science study. ``The question is, how do we make sense of it?``
In their Science study, Hirsh and his colleagues analyzed thousands of proteins shared by two organisms - the single-celled yeast, S. cerevisiae, and the more complex roundworm, C. elegans.
Proteins provide a wealth of information about an organism`s evolutionary history. Each protein consists of a chain of molecules called amino acids that are strung together in a specific order dictated by a specific gene.
The amino acid sequence varies in different organisms. For example, a bacterial protein is likely to contain slightly different amino acids than a corresponding human protein - even though both proteins carry out the same biological function in both organisms. These tiny differences in the amino acid sequence provide a record of how the protein changed in bacteria and people over billions of years of evolution.
Yeast and roundworms
Yeast and roundworms have been the subjects of intense i
'"/>
Contact: Mark Shwartz
mshwartz@stanford.edu
650-723-9296
Stanford University
6-May-2002