The Bonobo Genome Compared with the Chimpanzee and Human Genomes

Overview

Journal Nature

Specialty Science

Date 2012 Jun 23

PMID 22722832

Citations 177

Authors

Kay Prufer

Kasper Munch

Ines Hellmann

Keiko Akagi

Jason R Miller

Brian Walenz

Sergey Koren

Granger Sutton

Chinnappa Kodira

Roger Winer

James R Knight

James C Mullikin

Stephen J Meader

Chris P Ponting

Gerton Lunter

Saneyuki Higashino

Asger Hobolth

Julien Dutheil

Emre Karakoc

Can Alkan

Saba Sajjadian

Claudia Rita Catacchio

Mario Ventura

Tomas Marques-Bonet

Evan E Eichler

Claudine Andre

Rebeca Atencia

Lawrence Mugisha

Jorg Junhold

Nick Patterson

Michael Siebauer

Jeffrey M Good

Anne Fischer

Susan E Ptak

Michael Lachmann

David E Symer

Thomas Mailund

Mikkel H Schierup

Aida M Andres

Janet Kelso

Svante Paabo

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Two African apes are the closest living relatives of humans: the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus). Although they are similar in many respects, bonobos and chimpanzees differ strikingly in key social and sexual behaviours, and for some of these traits they show more similarity with humans than with each other. Here we report the sequencing and assembly of the bonobo genome to study its evolutionary relationship with the chimpanzee and human genomes. We find that more than three per cent of the human genome is more closely related to either the bonobo or the chimpanzee genome than these are to each other. These regions allow various aspects of the ancestry of the two ape species to be reconstructed. In addition, many of the regions that overlap genes may eventually help us understand the genetic basis of phenotypes that humans share with one of the two apes to the exclusion of the other.

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