Genetic Diversity of Monkeys Imaged in HD Benefit for Biodiversity and Human Health From Gorillas to Chimpanzees, Macaques to Orangutans: An Unprecedented High-Resolution Image Shows Monkey Genetic Diversity from 10 Scientific Studies From Gorillas to Chimpanzees, and Macaques to Orangutans : Unprecedented HD Image Precedents of primate genetic diversity emerge from ten scientific studies, eight of which published in Science and two in Science Advancement.
Their findings provide new insights useful not only for improving conservation efforts for these species (increasingly threatened by climate change, habitat loss, poaching, and illegal trade), but also for better understanding the genetic origin of many human diseases. The special flagship study, which was led by Lucas Cuderna of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Spain, specifically examined the genomes of more than 800 specimens from Asia, America, Africa and Madagascar and belonging to 233 primate species (nearly half of all those on Earth), making it possible It quadrupled the number of primate genomes available today.
This amount of data allowed us to date the moment when the evolutionary paths of chimpanzees and humans separated (the divergence would have occurred between 9.0 and 6.9 million years ago, and thus earlier than previously expected). It also identified more than 4 million mutations that affect amino acid composition and can alter protein function, causing disease in humans. This new genetic catalog finally halved the number of “genetic innovations” thought to be unique to humans.
This makes it easy to identify mutations that are not shared with primates and that may therefore be unique to human evolution and the characteristics that make us human.
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