• Question: Hi .... have you done anything on monkey DNA.... if you have can you please tell me what is the difference between Baboon DNA and chimpanzee DNA

    Asked by underwjd01 to Richard on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Richard Badge

      Richard Badge answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi underwjd01,

      Great question – in our lab we sometimes study chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan DNA, mostly to look at the differences between our jumping genes and theirs.

      We haven’t worked on baboon DNA, but as they are also primates so it is not impossible we will…

      With regard to the differences between chimpanzee and baboon DNA… We share a common ancestor with Chimpanzees that lived 6-8 Million years ago and our DNA is around 99% identical, or to put it another way if you looked at the same stretch of DNA in a chimpanzee and a human there would only be one difference every 100 units or letters (G, A, T, or C).

      Baboons are Old World Monkeys (and so have tails) and evolved in Africa around 25 million years ago. Human and baboon DNA are only 94% identical so there are around 6 differences in each stretch of 100 units.

      So in general although most people don’t look much like baboons our DNA shows we are quite closely related!

      Richard

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