BIO206H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Comparative Genomics, Synteny, Antimicrobial Resistance
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One widely used method is to compare the nucleotide sequences encoding the 16s or 18s rrna- the more divergent the sequence the more distantly related; more recently: whole genome comparisons. Person with a chimpanzee: comparative genomics is more than 99% dna sequence similarity and structural synteny. Look at the order of the genes on a chromosome. The living organisms that are living today come from a common ancestor and can be categorized into 3 categories: bacteria, archaea and eucaryotes. Evolutionary processes are not direct (there is no purpose and we are not the goal); it is random. Other organisms amendable to experimentation can teach us about us. We now know there is large scale horizontal gene transfer (not only vertical) Genome transfer of genetic information gama-proteo-bacteria made possible the evolution of the mitochondria. Ancestors of modern day cyanobacteria allowed origin of chloroplasts and the evolution of modern plants.
