Human brain evolution: From gene discovery to phenotype discovery
Todd M. Preuss1
Author Affiliations
Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322
Edited by Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine, CA, and approved April 25, 2012 (received for review February 27, 2012)
Abstract
The rise of comparative genomics and related technologies has added important new dimensions to the study of human evolution. Our knowledge of the genes that underwent expression changes or were targets of positive selection in human evolution is rapidly increasing, as is our knowledge of gene duplications, translocations, and deletions. It is now clear that the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are far more extensive than previously thought; their genomes are not 98% or 99% identical. Despite the rapid growth in our understanding of the evolution of the human genome, our understanding of the relationship between genetic changes and phenotypic changes is tenuous. This is true even for the most intensively studied gene, FOXP2, which underwent positive selection in the human terminal lineage and is thought to have played an important role in the evolution of human speech and language. In part, the difficulty of connecting genes to phenotypes reflects our generally poor knowledge of human phenotypic specializations, as well as the difficulty of interpreting the consequences of genetic changes in species that are not amenable to invasive research. On the positive side, investigations of FOXP2, along with genomewide surveys of gene-expression changes and selection-driven sequence changes, offer the opportunity for “phenotype discovery,” providing clues to human phenotypic specializations that were previously unsuspected. What is more, at least some of the specializations that have been proposed are amenable to testing with noninvasive experimental techniques appropriate for the study of humans and apes.
primate hominid phylogeny
Footnotes
1E-mail: tpreuss@emory.edu.
Author contributions: T.M.P. wrote the paper.
This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, “In the Light of Evolution VI: Brain and Behavior,” held January 19–21, 2012, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, CA. The complete program and audio files of most presentations are available on the NAS Web site at www.nasonline.org/evolution_vi.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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NOTA DESTE BLOGGERS:
Outros cientistas têm chegado aos 70% de semelhança genômica entre humanos e chimpanzés, mas essas pesquisas não ganham divulgação por contrariar o dogma da Nomenklatura científica sobre a evolução humana. Ter a afirmação de que não é 99% semelhante em uma publicação de renome como o PNAS já deveria ter sinalizado à Grande Mídia de que outras perguntas devem ser feitas aos cientistas quando falarem sobre a evolução humana.
Simples assim, mas é preciso ter cojones para fazer isso. Coragem é artigo em baixa no jornalismo científico e em outros jornalismos...
