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Gene control

  • 14/12/2005

Gene control Human and chimpanzee genes differ by a mere 1.2 per cent, which is insufficient to explain the differences between the two species. About 30 years ago, Mary-Claire King and Alan Wilson had proposed it is not genes but their expression that differentiates us from primates. Now, Matthew Rockman of Duke University, USA, and colleagues have found experimental evidence to support the proposition.

DNA sequences called cis-regulatory elements control how genes express themselves into proteins, in which cells and at what rate. These regulatory elements occur on the same DNA molecule as the gene they control. Rockman and colleagues compared the regulatory evolution of prodynorphin

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