2018 Baker Institute News: What makes us human is not just our genes, but how we regulate them

Abstract

This news item is about: Humans and chimpanzees share more than 99% of the same DNA. So why are we so vastly different from our closest primate relatives? Scientists have long suspected that what make us human isn’t just our genes, but how we regulate them. A new study from Dr. Charles Danko and colleagues at the Baker Institute and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory provides strong support for this idea. In a study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, they describe small differences between humans and chimps in regions of DNA called enhancers, which help turn on nearby genes. These changes point to specific ways that human and chimp evolution has diverged. They can also be explored further for their potential roles in inherited human diseases.