An interesting article in the NY Times reports on the research of various genetic researchres who are engaging in a strategy using "deep homology", that is, looking for genes that are important in humans but serve an entirely different function in other organisms (e.g., in humans, genes that supply blood to tumors are the same as those that maintain the cell walls in yeast). The article also reports on a curious connection between the "scaffolding" to support the synapse in the nervous system with genes that operate in single-cell organisms: quoting the article:
>Scientists are also discovering that our nervous system shares an >even deeper homology with single-celled organisms. Neurons >communicate with each other by forming connections called >synapses. The neurons use a network of genes to build a complete >scaffolding to support the synapse. In February, Alexandre Alié >and Michael Manuel of the National Center for Scientific Research >in France reported finding 13 of these scaffold-building genes >in single-celled relatives of animals known as choanoflagellates. > >No one is sure what choanoflagellates use these neuron-building >genes for. The one thing that is certain is that they don’t build >neurons with them. For more, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/science/27gene.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=2409 or send a blank email to leave-2409-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
