Re: What "New Lyme Spirochete"????

a_weisman_at_yahoo.com
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: 24 Feb 2005 05:22:20 -0800

See this too. Humans are 60% genetically similar to fruit flys.

So one borrelia being 97% similar to another, isn't at all astounding:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fruit fly gene success
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/647139.stm

Friday, 18 February, 2000, 18:14 GMT
Fruit fly gene success

We have much in common with the fruit fly

Scientists have unravelled virtually the entire genetic code of the
fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). The work will be enormously
helpful in figuring out the more complex genome of humans.

The scientists behind the collaborative effort are likely to publish
their results next month - 18 months ahead of the initial schedule.

I would still put money on the publicly-funded HGP to produce the
biologically important information before Celera

Dr Peter Little, Imperial College
The project was discussed at the American Association for the
Advancement of Science's (AAAS) annual meeting, currently taking place
in Washington DC.

The researchers said they had deciphered more than 97% of the fly's
genetic code and more than 99% of the actual genes. In all, it turns
out that every fruit fly cell contains 13,601 genes. Human cells, by
contrast, are thought to have more 70,000 genes.

The achievement is being widely hailed as a dramatic and important
development in science - it is the most complex organism yet to have
its genome decoded.

But while some believe it proves that the technology used to decode the
genome is effective, others believe that unravelling the human DNA
sequence will be much more difficult.

Human connection

Fruit flies share nearly 60% of human genes and are studied by
thousands of scientists around the world. The reason is that fruit
flies and humans use the same or similar genes to develop into adults.
And the short life cycle of the fly makes it an ideal subject for
genetic experiments.
Rubin: Celera speeded things up

Professor Gerry Rubin, from the University Of California, Berkeley,
worked with the Celera Genomics Corporation to decipher the fruit fly's
DNA sequence: "They can become addicted to alcohol, cocaine and other
drugs. They have a wake-sleep cycle like humans do. They have
complicated rituals of behaviour.

"So in many ways they're really fully functional animals with a brain
and behaviour, in addition to sharing many of the biochemical pathways
humans have."

Professor Rubin set up the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project Group in
1992. Since then, he has been sequencing the entire genetic blueprint.
The information can be accessed on the internet by scientists, and Dr
Matthew Freeman, at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK, has
been making practical use of the information. He studies flies with
disrupted eyes.

"It turned out that the molecules causing these problems in fruit flies
were the same molecules that we know were responsible for causing
cancer in humans. So our research in something as bizarre-sounding as a
fruit fly's eyes leads to an understanding of the molecules that cause
cancer in humans."

Soil worm

Decoding an organism's genome is time-consuming but the technology used
is becoming faster and faster. The soil worm Caenorhabditis elegans
took eight years to decode, but the more complicated fruit fly has been
completed in the same time.
The race is now on to decode other organisms

This is partly due to the intervention of Dr Craig Venter, the
entrepreneur head of Celera Genomics. He has antagonised some fellow
scientists by patenting pieces of genetic code with commercial value.
But the combination of Dr Venter's fast-decoding technology and
Professor Rubin's carefully-compiled fruit fly database has been a
success for both of them.

"Working with Craig Venter and his colleagues at Celera has allowed us
to complete the project 18 months earlier and probably saved the US tax
payer $10 million," Professor Rubin told the BBC.

Dr Peter Little is a molecular biologist at Imperial College, London,
UK. He agrees that the complete sequencing of the fruit fly genome is
significant and useful.

He said: "It is a dramatic and important achievement and provides a
very powerful way of developing hypotheses which can then be tested in
humans."

Gene race

However, Dr Little disagrees that this means that Celera is sure to win
the race to complete the human genome, beating the publicly-funded
Human Genome Project.

"You have to understand that the fly genome is 10 times smaller than
the human genome, and is also simpler. In humans, the same sequence is
found over and over again - it's the most ghastly mess, but the fly
isn't."
This small soil worm showed the way

He believes the fly genome could help Celera by allowing them to gain
early experience in seeing what genes look like among the long strands
of human DNA.

"But we won't know until very late in their project - their method does
everything at once, whereas the HGP does things in steps, looking in
great detail," he said.

He added: "If I was a betting man, and I am, I would still put money on
the publicly-funded HGP to produce the biologically-important
information before Celera."

Relevant Pages

  • Re: natural transgenic gene movement
    ... definite occurenceof low-frequency movement of genes between species ... DNA caneven travel via the placenta into the unborn."So ... the rest of the genesin the fruit fly's genome have fought ... DNA of humans issourced from mobile DNA."Not to mention the fruit ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Chimp Genome Unveiled
    ... > The chimp genome sequence, which consists of 2.8 billion pairs of DNA ... > per gene is just two, and 29% of human genes are absolutely identical. ... > partially deleted in chimps. ... > role in the evolution of chimps and humans since the two lineages split, ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bwahahah!!!!!
    ... "Great chunks of the genome are virtually identical." ... For evolutionists, genome similarity is as much a reflection of common ancestry than ... the similarity of genes is not correct. ... We would expect them to be approximately as much like humans as mice. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The Chimp Genome Challenge
    ... Calling all deniers of common ... >>Researchers Identify Gene Unique to Humans and Their Ape Kin ... >>Each newly sequenced genome allows scientists to determine how humans stack ... >>as many genes as a worm or a fly. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The Chimp Genome Challenge
    ... Calling all deniers of common ... > Researchers Identify Gene Unique to Humans and Their Ape Kin ... > Each newly sequenced genome allows scientists to determine how humans stack ... > as many genes as a worm or a fly. ...
    (talk.origins)