Disease-associated genes as old as first ‘life’
October 17, 2008 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Health
Genes that cause disease have been traced back to the origin of the first cell, scientists from Max Planck found.
A novel method of genomic phylostratigraphy has recontructed the evolutionary origin of disease-causing genes in humans, and the results have surprising implications.
Tomislav Domazet-Lošo and Diethard Tautz from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön (Germany) applied genomic phylostratigraphy to determine that most disease genes originated with the ‘first cell’, and other large groups of genes emerged around the appearance of multi-cellular organisms. BUT no disease-associated genes emerged after the origin of mammals.
What exactly do these results mean? According to the researchers -
- all living things will be affected by similar genetic diseases;
- genetically caused disease will never be beaten completely;
- but it will be easier to identify candidates for further genes (I’m not getting the "how" of this yet).
