chicken genome decoded

The chicken is now an open book.. so to speak.

some interesting finds from the chicken genome.
-humans and chickens share 2.5% of thier DNA
-this indicates that humans and chickens shared an ancestor about 310 million years ago.
-chickens have 1.1 billion base pairs and 20-23,000 genes compaired to humans with 3 billion base pairs and 20-25,000 genes.
-chickens have genes for the growth of scales, teeth and claws that point to a dinosuar ancestor.
-chickens also have a different gene responcible for the formation of Keratin (used for growing hair, fur and feathers) this means that the ability to produce keratin evolved twice.
-also it appears that chickens have a highly deveolped sence of smell, something not expected from the chickens olfactory lobes.

The hopes for the future of this knowledge include helping to prevent avian spread diseases such as Salmonella and other diseases like SARS. It is also hoped that it will help breaders to develop better chickens for our tables.

from Nature news.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041206/full/041206-8.html

wa:do

thanks so much for the link.

where did your 'interesting finds' come from though? as i don't see them in the article.

http://petcaretips.net/mythology-bird.html

Ya, right-on. The Greek and Egyptian knew that bird and human are close relatives.
Sirens Birds with women's heads and lovely, mesmerizing voices; Sphinx Generally associated with Egypt, the half-bird, half-woman creature made its appearance in Greek mythology as the scourge of Thebes.

check out the Related links section and you will find a link to the online Chicken Genome web focus...
At the time I posted the link it was a more involved web focus.. it has sence been slimmed down to make room for newer discovereies..
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v432/n7018/full/nature03154_fs.html

wa:do

thanks i was just wondering because i was having a discussion with someone else and their source stated the dna similarity was/is 60%...

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/chicken_genome_041208.html

thanks.

Well, I guess Foster Farms will be glad to hear that.

That is some awesome info, PW! Now that they're done with the chicken, (bawk, bawk!), are they getting started on another animal besides the human?

I am always impressed by your depth of knowledge - how on earth do you remember all this stuff ?

hmm... the 60% is stated a few times out there... I'll have to do a bit more looking around to see which number is indeed more accurate. It may come down to a question of semantics when talking about DNA... Whole DNA sequence vs. just the genes.

wa:do

-this indicates that humans and chickens shared an ancestor about 310 million years ago.

Click to expand...

How is this so? Technically we share genetic material with most all living organisms, right?

well the last common ancestor we shared is where we get our shared genetic material... the more you share the closer in history you shared that ancestor... for instance we share a lot of material with Chimps our closest relitivies...
Mammals and birds shared a similer reptialian ancestor... just prior to the radiation of the advanced reptiles... the Archosaurs, Synapsids and so on...
One group became more birdlike...Archosaurs... one group became more mammal like Synapsids...
Still other groups became the reptile famlies we know today.

So while we share genetic material with all living organisms, how much you share gives you an idea of how close you are to each other and how long ago your last shared ancestor lived.

hope this helps.

wa:do