From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Dec 05 2002 - 10:52:56 MST
The NY Times has an interesting article about a comparison
between the mouse and human genomes.
Similarities Found in Mouse Genes and Human's
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/science/05MOUS.html?pagewanted=print
Points of interest
- only about 1% (300 genes) in the mouse have no human counterpart
despite 75 million years of evolutionary divergence.
- Mice have different/superior gene sets with respect to smell,
pheromones, degradation of toxins in the diet, and immune defense.
- There may be as many as 4280+ non-protein coding "genes" (RNA genes) --
a very unstudied area.
A personal observation suggests that with this amount of similarity
in the genomes with a 20-fold difference in longevity suggests that
the rate of aging is under the control of a limited number of genes
(probably hundreds or less).
Robert
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