Monday, November 13, 2006

Gene expression, chimp vs. human   posted by Razib @ 11/13/2006 08:18:00 PM
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Some people say human geneticists suck. On the other hand, check this out, Conservation and evolution of gene coexpression networks in human and chimpanzee brains:
Comparisons of gene expression between human and non-human primate brains have identified hundreds of differentially expressed genes, yet translating these lists into key functional distinctions between species has proved difficult. Here we provide a more integrated view of human brain evolution by examining the large-scale organization of gene coexpression networks in human and chimpanzee brains. We identify modules of coexpressed genes that correspond to discrete brain regions and quantify their conservation between the species. Module conservation in cerebral cortex is significantly weaker than module conservation in subcortical brain regions, revealing a striking gradient that parallels known evolutionary hierarchies....


Here's the press release for the public.

Update by Darth Quixote: Useful Wikipedia articles for understanding this paper include DNA microarray, hierarchical clustering, principal components, multidimensional scaling, and functional genomics.