Humans, flies and worms share biological processes

A new research has revealed that human, fly and worm genomes have a lot of processes in common.

Researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) studied the gene expression patterns and regulatory proteins that in the three species often shared common features.

Investigators also detailed the similar ways in which the three species used protein packaging to compact DNA into the cell nucleus and to regulate genome function by controlling access to DNA.

The lead author on one of the papers, Mark Gerstein, said that one way to describe and understand the human genome was through comparative genomics and studying model organisms.

Gerstein added that the special thing about the worm and fly was that they were very distant from humans evolutionarily, so finding something conserved across all three, human, fly and worm, showed that it was a very ancient, fundamental process.

The researchers found that in all three organisms, the gene expression levels for both protein-coding and non-protein-coding genes could be quantitatively predicted from chromatin features at the promoters of genes, who tells the cell's machinery where to begin copying DNA into RNA that can be used to make proteins.

The study is published in the journal Nature.