Re: GENOMES: Human gene number revised down

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2003 - 08:17:16 MDT

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    On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, Damien Broderick wrote:

    > Anyone thinking there's a top of the evolutionary spectrum (or tree, or
    > best-fitness scale) is wrong anyway. But I can't see how the raw number of
    > genes can have the slightest bearing on our own magnificence. We *know* how
    > cool humans are (by human standards), and if it turned out that we were
    > constructed by only 1000 genes we wouldn't suddenly turn into slime molds.
    [snip]

    Agreed Damien, but I can remember the days in the mid-90's when there
    were very strong arguments for there being 100,000+ genes. So now
    we are down by 50% perhaps as much as 25%. From a programmer standpoint
    lines of code count! One can make the case in terms of lots of
    lines of code suggesting one is very productive or one can make
    the case in terms of very few lines of code, perhaps suggesting
    that one is very clever at getting a lot done with a minimal
    amount of effort.

    It would appear that nature is leaning towards the second
    alternative at least with respect to the human genome.
    Whether other genomes have the same capabilities remain
    to be seen. Why/how the Fugu genome manages to produce
    a vertebrate with ~10x less genomic code will indeed be
    a very interesting puzzle to answer.

    For comparison purposes -- they just finished the genome
    of bread mold -- nearly 10,000 genes. Wow! I would have
    hoped that I was at least three times as complex as bread
    mold, instead, according to the article cited I'm closer
    to two times as complex.

    (Now of course it looks like complexity is derived in a
    very different way in higher organisms so gene count
    number may be a very poor way of measuring complexity.
    But I simply thought the article was interesting
    and the list might find it so.)

    Robert



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