Identification of nine human-specific frameshift mutations by comparative analysis of the human and the chimpanzee genome sequences.
BACKGROUND
The recent release of the draft sequence of the chimpanzee genome is an invaluable resource for finding genome-wide genetic differences that might explain phenotypic differences between humans and chimpanzees.


BACKGROUND
In this paper, we describe a simple procedure to identify potential human-specific frameshift mutations that occurred after the divergence of human and chimpanzee. The procedure involves collecting human coding exons bearing insertions or deletions compared with the chimpanzee genome and identification of homologs from other species, in support of the mutations being human-specific. Using this procedure, we identified nine genes, BASE, DNAJB3, FLJ33674, HEJ1, NTSR2, RPL13AP, SCGB1D4, WBSCR27 and ZCCHC13, that show human-specific alterations including truncations of the C-terminus. In some cases, the frameshift mutation results in gene inactivation or decay. In other cases, the altered protein seems to be functional. This study demonstrates that even the unfinished chimpanzee genome sequence can be useful in identifying modification of genes that are specific to the human lineage and, therefore, could potentially be relevant to the study of the acquisition of human-specific traits.
Hahn
Yoonsoo
Y
Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Lee
Byungkook
B
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D005091:Exons; D016368:Frameshift Mutation; D017353:Gene Deletion; D016678:Genome; D015894:Genome, Human; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D002679:Pan troglodytes; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity
D012333:RNA, Messenger