Results of your pairwise alignment comparing the beta globin gene in humans and in chimps

1. Data about the alignment can be found below the blue/black alignment chart. How many base pairs (bp) are

there in the beta globin gene for:

a. The chimp? 600 basepair or bp

b. The human? 626 bp

2. A blue asterisk indicates that the nucleotides (bp) in both sequences are the same, we say they are conserved. What percentage of the beta globin sequence is conserved in chimps and humans? (Don’t include the insertion at the beginning of the human gene). This percentage is often reported as a similarity “score” below the alignment.
99% similarity score

3. Would you expect the protein structure to be highly similar or markedly different in the chimp and the human?Explain.
I would expect the protein structure would be highly similar in the chimp and humans because of the 99% similarity score

RETURN TO BIOLOGY WORKBENCH INSTRUCTIONS

Results of your pairwise alignment comparing the beta globin gene in humans and in chickens:

1. What is the percentage of sequence conservation between the beta globin gene in chickens and humans?  57%

2. Looking at the two pairwise alignments you have performed, would you expect the beta globin protein found in humans to be more similar to that found in chickens or that found in chimps? Explain.

The beta goblin protein found in humans would be more similar in chimps than in chickens because of the alignment similarity

3. Do the results achieved by running these alignments support the results on evolutionary relationships determined by scientists using anatomical homology (similarities)? Explain.

since it shows such a similarly comparison to a chimp I do believe that this can be evidence on evolutionary relationships.

RETURN TO BIOLOGY WORKBENCH INSTRUCTIONS

Results of your multiple sequence alignment comparing the beta globin gene in a variety of animal species:

1. Examine the Unrooted Tree produced.

Record the species at the end of each branch on the unrooted tree shown below.

2. Based on the information in the unrooted tree:

a. Which two species appear to be most closely related to each other? Explain your choice.

Human and Chimp the reason for this is we have thumbs and on the unrooted tree the chimp and human are really close together.

b. Which two species seem to be the least closely related to each other? Explain your choice.

Chicken and the mouse because mice have fur while chickens have feathers, chickens have a beak while a mouse has a snout.

3. Comparative evolutionary distance between species is indicated by the length of the clades they are on. Give

the comparative evolutionary distance (by percentage similarity “score”) between:

a. The mouse and human 79%

b. The wallaby and the human 75%

c. The chimp and the human 99%

Comment on the significance of these results given your knowledge of mammalian groups.

RETURN TO BIOLOGY WORKBENCH INSTRUCTIONS

Results of your Rooted Phylogenetic Tree:
1. Examine your Rooted Phylogenetic Tree and record the species at the end of each branch.

2. Based on this tree diagram, which species is/are most closely related to:

a. The goldfish: chicken

b. The mouse: human

3. Homology is a term used to refer to a feature in two or more species that is similar because of descent; it evolved from the same feature in the last common ancestor of the species. Hence, similarity in DNA or protein sequences between individuals of the same species or among different species is referred to as sequence homology.  Which two species in the tree above share greatest homology with respect to the beta globin gene?

The two species that share the greatest homology with respect to the beta global gene is the chimp and the human

4. A node is a branch point representing a divergence event from a common ancestor. Which two species have the most ancestral nodes (divergence events) in the tree above? Explain your answer giving the number of nodes leading to these species.

chimp, mouse, and human 3 ancestral nodes

5. Looking at the phylogenetic tree above, which two organisms:

a. Diverged from their common ancestor most recently? chimp and human

b. Diverged from their common ancestor least recently? chimp and mouse

6. Draw a modified phylogenetic tree to show how the tree above might change if the beta globin gene for a kangaroo was added to the multiple sequence alignment.


7. It is important to understand that the phylogenetic trees you generated using bioinformatics tools are based on sequence data alone. While sequence relatedness can be very powerful as a predictor of the relatedness of species, other methods must be used in addition to sequence homology, to determine evolutionary relationships. Briefly describe 3 other methods that you think might be used to determine evolutionary relationships.
● how they look

● bone structure

●what they eat