{"id":31097,"date":"2012-05-04T21:03:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T21:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/05\/04\/jtotheizzoe-a-duplicate-gene-may-have-helped\/"},"modified":"2017-07-01T17:44:37","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T17:44:37","slug":"jtotheizzoe-a-duplicate-gene-may-have-helped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/05\/04\/jtotheizzoe-a-duplicate-gene-may-have-helped\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-31097 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/05\/04\/jtotheizzoe-a-duplicate-gene-may-have-helped\/attachment\/31098\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/tumblr_m3iksaiDFY1qbh26io1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/tumblr_m3iksaiDFY1qbh26io1_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/tumblr_m3iksaiDFY1qbh26io1_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, 100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/www.itsokaytobesmart.com\/post\/22396181613\/a-duplicate-gene-may-have-helped-our-brains-become\">jtotheizzoe<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>A Duplicate Gene May Have Helped Our Brains Become \u201cHuman\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Among the ~25,000 or so genes in our genome, we find a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_duplication\">handful of duplicates<\/a>. Some of them, like the genes that make pieces of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ribosome\">ribosome<\/a> (your cellular protein factories) are fully-functional exact copies. This allows your cells to make a whole mess of that gene product. But other duplicates are imperfect copies put there by accidents or errors, and often those copies can be a bit wonky.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One of those imperfect gene copies may have had a strong influence on our brains becoming more advanced and \u201chuman\u201d during evolution. A group led by Evan Eichler looked at a gene called SRGAP2 and noted that it appeared to have been duplicated to a certain form about <strong>2.4 million years ago<\/strong>, which is when the <em>Homo<\/em>\u00a0lineage split from <em>Australopithecus<\/em>. That duplicate, called SRGAP2C, actually overpowers the function of the original gene.<\/p>\n<p>Even cooler, when Franck Polleux at Scripps expressed that SRGAP2C in mice, it made their neurons look <strong>a lot more human<\/strong>! So perhaps when this imperfect duplicate popped up in our genome, it changed the way our neurons developed (as shown in the <strong>picture above<\/strong>). If those changes were significant enough, they could have helped our larger and more advanced\u00a0<em>Homo<\/em>\u00a0brains evolve beyond our simpler ancestors! It\u2019s too early to make that claim just yet, but it\u2019s a very cool idea.<\/p>\n<p>This also means that because our neurons develop in a way that is so different from mice, we should reconsider whether they are a good model for disorders like autism. We may be looking at a brain that\u2019s just too different from our own at its core.<\/p>\n<p>For more, Ed Yong has some good coverage of this <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/notrocketscience\/2012\/05\/04\/a-duplicated-gene-shaped-human-brain-evolution%E2%80%A6-and-why-the-genome-project-missed-it\/\">on his blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>jtotheizzoe: A Duplicate Gene May Have Helped Our Brains Become \u201cHuman\u201d Among the ~25,000 or so genes in our genome, we find a handful of duplicates. Some of them, like the genes that make pieces of the ribosome (your cellular protein factories) are fully-functional exact copies. This allows your cells to make a whole mess &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/05\/04\/jtotheizzoe-a-duplicate-gene-may-have-helped\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31099,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31097\/revisions\/31099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}