Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA11485 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:24:41 GMT Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 08:18:24 -0800 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Fewer genes than expected To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3A880CD0.6C5C9337@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en References: <001501c09465$7fff0100$800cbed4@default> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Kenneth,
Here is a quote from the Nature article (Vol. 409, p. 901), on
www.nature.com.
> The human thus appears to have only about twice as many genes
> as worm or fly. However, human genes differ in important respects
> from those in worm and fly. They are spread out over much larger
> regions of genomic DNA, and they are used to construct more
> alternative transcripts. This may result in perhaps five times as many
> primary protein products in the human as in the worm or fly.
IOW, gene number is only a gross estimate of phenotypic complexity.
Ciao,
Bill
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