Dolphins, cats are not similar despite sharing same genes

A new research has revealed the reason behind dolphins not being a cat, or the reason of rich diversity in mammals.

The research led by European Molecular Biology Laboratory found out the reason behind the divergence of mammals instead of having same genes, and examined genome sequences in around 29 mammals and compared gene regulation in liver cells from 20 key species.

The researchers explained the ways to turn changes in the genome into differences between species which included change of protein sequence, or by changing the way promoters or enhancers control that protein's expression.

The team of researches explained that even both the changes can occur at the same time when amino acid sequences evolve very quickly.

Paul Flicek, head of Vertebrate Genomics at European Bioinformatics Institute said that their research focuses on evolution repurposes things that exist in all species, to make each species unique, and by looking at gene promoters and enhancers in many different mammals, their study demonstrated that species-specific enhancers come from ancient DNA.

Duncan Odom of CRUK CI and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute explained that with their study findings they can now answer questions about the functional genetics of many under-explored, and this research has also given new insights into mammalian evolution.

The research is published in Cell.