Abstract
The chimpanzee is our closest living relative. The morphological
differences between the two species are so large that there is no
problem in distinguishing between them. However, the nucleotide
difference between the two species is surprisingly small. The early
genome comparison by DNA hybridization techniques suggested a nucleotide
difference of 1-2%. Recently, direct nucleotide sequencing confirmed
this estimate. These findings generated the common belief that the human
is extremely close to the chimpanzee at the genetic level. However, if
one looks at proteins, which are mainly responsible for phenotypic
differences, the picture is quite different, and about 80% of proteins
are different between the two species. Still, the number of proteins
responsible for the phenotypic differences may be smaller since not all
genes are directly responsible for phenotypic characters.
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