There's more to a coral polyp than meets the eye. Sure, cnidarians have a fairly simple body plan that has remained relatively unchanged over 550 million years. But a recent surge in coral genome projects has been yielding surprising facts about the genetics of corals. Based on the genetics already performed on other early metazoans, researchers had originally predicted that corals would have approximately 10,000 genes. These estimates have now been upped to as high as 20,000-25,000 genes. What makes this amazing is that makes the coral genome comparable in size to the estimated 20,000-23,000 genes that comprise the human genome. Why so many genes? That's what evolutionary biologists and geneticists are excited to find out. But beyond the evolutionary insights, the comparably sized genome may also provide exciting practical applications. Genetic information contained by coral may lend insight into immune system structures in vertebrates including humans. Scientists hope that by studying coral immune systems they may learn how to better fight human diseases through better understanding of the overall system. Sounds like a great utilitarian reason to keep coral reefs healthy into the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment