Biologists at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a new type of yeast that is part fungus and part human, demonstrating that two types of lifeforms separated by over a billion years of evolution still have hundreds of genes in common.
According to Discovery News, those genes are remnants of the last common ancestor between people and fungi – DNA which is virtually unchanged and remained surprising stable during the course of evolution. By creating partially-human yeast, the team may have found a way to better understand genetic disorders and to evaluate potential new treatments for these conditions.
“Cells use a common set of parts and those parts, even after a billion years of independent evolution, are swappable,” said Edward Marcotte, a professor in the UT-Austin Department of Molecular Biosciences and co-director of the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology. “It’s a beautiful demonstration of the common heritage of all living things.”
More http://bit.ly/1cTXPsm
'via Blog this'
No comments:
Post a Comment