Jube's Phylogeny Anaylsis

Olajube Aladewolu

Mr.Hammer

Ap Biology

24 October 2014

Evolutionary Links Between Organisms

Hemophilia A is a coagulation disorder that has had a fatal effect on many animals for years (College, 1). It is a very serious disease, and it first emerged in the early 1900s. This is an inherited disease that can have similar, yet different effects on organisms. FVIII is the blood clotting protein which enables the blood to clot as soon as an animal begins to bleed. This topic is very interesting because the mutations that cause Hemophilia A to occur are very powerful. They can mean the difference between life and death. Hence, such diseases may entail remarkable evolutionary similarities between organisms that are relatively similar. Phylogenetic labs are helpful when determining evolutionary relations so I wanted to test exactly how similar humans, chimpanzees, and mouses are to one another. What accounts for their differences or similarities, if any, in the presence of a mutation in the FVIII gene?

I chose to analyze the genome sequence data of the coagulated FVIII gene in the three animals. I used the scientific (genus-species) name to find the nucleotide sequences. The mouses were referred to as mus musculus; humans as homo sapiens, and chimpanzees as pan troglodytes.  Furthermore, I used the NCBI website to ensure the validity of the sequences. I aligned the genes in clustalx and then used my findings to make a phylogenetic tree in the njplot program. This allowed me to see just how closely related the gene sequences of the pan troglodytes and homo sapiens were in comparison to the mus musculus.

My tree diagram shows how the pan troglodytes (chimpanzees) and homo sapiens (humans) diverged from a common ancestor. It also shows that the mus musculus (mice) diverged from the ancestor of the common ancestor of pan troglodytes and homo sapiens. Thus, it makes sense that they would all suffer from similar diseases such as hemophilia. However, the constructed phylogenetic tree also shows that the mus musculus diverged earlier than the pan troglodytes and homo sapiens so it’s expected that their gene sequences for the FVIII protein are not identical to one another. Essentially, the results from my phylogenetic tree supports the evolutionary links between all three species. It is a fact that chimpanzees and humans share 98.8% of the same DNA (DNA, 1). In fact, an experiment was conducted in which a chimpanzee's blood was analyzed. The results showed that the number of genetic differences between humans and chimps is ten times smaller than that between mice and rats. Hence , the data constructed from the experiment shows that there are close evolutionary ties between humans and chimpanzees. This also supports my phylogenetic tree because it shows that  there’s a prevalent relationship between both species. Thus, the genome sequences of chimpanzees and humans in the presence of mutated FVIII genes do not contain many differences.

Essentially, their differences in gene sequences in the presence of a mutated FVIII gene is caused by their different points on divergence because the most recent ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was not shared with the mice. The mice had their own ,distinct, evolutionary line of ancestors which allow them to be the way they are. Humans and chimpanzees suffer from similar problems as their bodies code in similar fashion for the most part. Generally speaking, my phylogenetic tree was very useful because it used the genome sequence of Hemophilia A to clearly show the different points of divergence between the three animals.

Furthermore, researchers also discovered that some classes of genes are changing unusually quickly in both humans and chimpanzees in comparison to other mammals (Chimps, 1). Although It remains evident that humans and chimpanzees share many of the same features, they share some evolutionary links with mice as well. However, mice do not have as many similarities due to their earlier evolutionary divergence. The chimpanzee immune system is a reflection of the human genome because viruses that cause diseases like AIDS and hepatitis can also infect chimpanzees (DNA, 1). However, researchers have found extraordinary consistency between gene expression profiles in the mouse and human immune systems in addition to their points of divergence. The majority of gene expression patterns, about 80 percent, were the same in mouse and human (HMS, 1). To sum up, humans and chimpanzees are a lot more closely related to each other than they are to mice.  Mice are less complex because they diverged from their common ancestor at an earlier point while humans and chimpanzees came into existence more recently, according to evolutionary scales and models.

Works Cited

"Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.

"College of Veterinary Medicine - Cornell University." Hemophilia A. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

"DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps." AMNH. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

"HMS." Comparing Mouse and Human Immune Systems. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

"HMS." Comparing Mouse and Human Immune Systems. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

Tree

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cz0VdYtFnuLb5ZrgBCOjr96jGTMjFTFBYP4QOWo5cts/edit