Saturday, June 21, 2008

Evolution Of An Imprinted Domain In Mammals

The normal human genome contains 46 chromosomes: 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. Thus, you have two copies of every gene (excluding some irregularity in the pair of sex chromosomes).

In general, which parent contributes a chromosome has no effect on the expression of the genes found on it. Exceptions to this rule are caused by "genomic imprinting"--modification of DNA, which means that gene expression is influenced by which parent the gene came from.

A new paper investigates the evolution of genomic imprinting in a specific region of the mammalian genome. The work, by Anne Ferguson-Smith and colleagues in the UK and Australia, shows that different regions became imprinted at different times during mammalian evolution.

http://www.grahamhancock.com/news/index.php?node=10244

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