In a genetics milestone, scientists have sequenced the complete genomes of six ape species

Good news! Amazing stuff! Very impressive!

Now let's train some large neural networks on all this new genetic data! I can't wait to see the results! 😊

"In a genetics milestone, scientists have sequenced the complete genomes of six ape species ... providing key new insights into human evolution, health, and genetic disease."

"Differences among the DNA of seven ape species — including humans — are greater than originally thought, according to an international team ...They revealed the genetic details with “complete” reference genomes, which are standardized sequences of a species’ genes and other chromosomal regions.

Complete reference genomes allow for comparison between species, enabling researchers to look for variations in DNA that might impact a species’ health and survival. Assembling full DNA sequences from one end of each chromosome to the other was previously not possible due to technological and algorithmic limitations. ..."

From the abstract:

"The most dynamic and repetitive regions of great ape genomes have traditionally been excluded from comparative studies. Consequently, our understanding of the evolution of our species is incomplete.

Here we present haplotype-resolved reference genomes and comparative analyses of six ape species: chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan and siamang.

We achieve chromosome-level contiguity with substantial sequence accuracy (<1 error in 2.7 megabases) and completely sequence 215 gapless chromosomes telomere-to-telomere.

We resolve challenging regions, such as the major histocompatibility complex and immunoglobulin loci, to provide in-depth evolutionary insights.

Comparative analyses enabled investigations of the evolution and diversity of regions previously uncharacterized or incompletely studied without bias from mapping to the human reference genome. Such regions include newly minted gene families in lineage-specific segmental duplications, centromeric DNA, acrocentric chromosomes and subterminal heterochromatin.

This resource serves as a comprehensive baseline for future evolutionary studies of humans and our closest living ape relatives."

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Complete genome sequences of six ape species unveiled (original news release) "Previously inaccessible regions reveal novel insights that may advance understanding of evolution and conservation genetics for endangered apes as well as human health"

Complete sequencing of ape genomes (open access)

"Here is looking at you kid!" (Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca movie  with Ingrid Bergman from 1942 directed by Michael Curtiz)! 😊