Genomic divergences between humans and other hominoids and the effective population size of the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

ABSTRACT: To study the genomic divergences among hominoids and to estimate the effective population size of the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, we selected 53 autosomal intergenic nonrepetitive DNA segments from the human genome and sequenced them in a human, a chimpanzee, a gorilla, and an orangutan. The average sequence divergence was only 1.24% +/- 0.07% for the human-chimpanzee pair, 1.62% +/- 0.08% for the human-gorilla pair, and 1.63% +/- 0.08% for the chimpanzee-gorilla pair. These estimates, which were confirmed by additional data from GenBank, are substantially lower than previous ones, which included repetitive sequences and might have been based on less-accurate sequence data. The average sequence divergences between orangutans and humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas were 3.08% +

SUBMITTER: Chen FC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1235277 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature