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/ Technology News / 2008 / January 2008 / January 30, 2008 Genetic differences between humans, chimps may be due to distinct diet |
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A study in mice conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has found some of the differences between humans and chimpanzees to differences in the diet.
Washington, Jan 30 : A study in mice conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has found some of the differences between humans and chimpanzees to differences in the diet.
Humans and apes have a different diet. Humans not only consume much more meat and fat, but also cook their food. It has been hypothesized that adopting these dietary patterns played a significant role during human evolution.
But, till date, the influence of diet on the physiological and genetic differences between humans and other apes has not been widely studied.
By feeding laboratory mice different human and chimp diets over a mere two-week period, the researchers were able to reconstruct some of the physiological and genetic differences observed between humans and chimpanzees.
They fed mice one of three diets: a raw fruit and vegetable diet fed to chimpanzees in zoos, a human diet consisting of food served at the Institute cafeteria or a pure fast food menu from the local McDonald's.
The diet of the chimpanzee was clearly different from the two human diets in its effect on the liver - thousands of differences were observed in the levels at which genes were expressed in the mouse livers. No such differences were observed in the mouse brains.
A significant fraction of the genes that changed in the mouse livers, had previously been observed as different between humans and chimpanzees.
The study therefore indicates that the differences observed in these particular genes might be caused by the difference in human and chimpanzee diets.
Moreover, the diet-related genes also appear to have evolved faster than other genes - protein and promoter sequences of these genes changed faster than expected, possibly because of adaptation to new diets.
The study is published in the January 30 issue of PLoS ONE.
ANI
