Evolution

Figure 1. The human genome is a complicated meshwork of duplications and deletions that are lineage-specific, i.e. only occuring in human. One example for this is the genetic architecture of human chromosome 16. When comparing baboon and man, the human chromosome 16 is a complicated puzzle of deletions, duplication, duplications-within-duplications etc. This is the reason why there are at least five different microdeletions syndromes on chromosome 16, resulting from accidental genomic rearrangements between these duplications (This image is modified from a figure on the web page of the Eichler lab eichlerlab.gs.washington.edu/primate.html)

Ingo Helbig

Child Neurology Fellow and epilepsy genetics researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), USA and Department of Neuropediatrics, Kiel, Germany

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