New bonobo genome fine tunes great ape evolution studies

A newly generated bonobo genome assembly is helping pinpoint specific variants that distinguish chimpanzee and bonobo lineages

2021-05-05

(Press-News.org) Chimpanzees and bonobos diverged comparatively recently in great ape evolutionary history. They split into different species about 1.7 million years ago. Some of the distinctions between chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus) lineages have been made clearer by a recent achievement in hominid genomics.

A new bonobo genome assembly has been constructed with a multiplatform approach and without relying on reference genomes. According to the researchers on this project, more than 98% of the genes are now completely annotated and 99% of the gaps are closed.

The high quality of this assembly is allowing scientists to more accurately compare the bonobo genome to that of other great apes - the gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee - as well as to the modern human. All these species, as well as extinct, ancient, human-like beings, are referred to as hominids.

Because chimpanzee and bonobo are also the closest living species to modern humans, comparing higher-quality genomes could help uncover genetic changes that set the human species apart.

In a May 5 Nature paper, researchers explain how they developed and analyzed the new bonobo assembly, and what juxtaposing it to other great ape genomes is revealing.

The multi-institutional project was led by Yafei Mao, of the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, and Claudia R. Catacchio, of the Department of Biology at the University of Bari, Italy. The senior scientists were END

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