18 Questions
What term describes a gene/protein related to a second gene/protein by descent from a common ancestral gene by speciation?
Homolog
Which mechanism involves the evolution of similar features or properties in genes/proteins of different genetic lineages?
Convergent evolution
What is the term that describes genes/proteins in different species that evolved from a common ancestral gene by speciation and retain the same function?
Ortholog
What type of evolution involves genes/proteins related by duplication of a common ancestral gene that evolves new functions even if related to that of the ancestor?
Paralog
What type of evolution involves the evolution of a new gene/protein that is genetically independent of the ancestral gene from which it arose?
Speciation
What is the term for stochastic single point changes in the genetic material due to various factors, leading to slow but constant mutation rates?
Mutation
What percentage of genes are identical between humans and chimpanzees?
99%
How many nucleotide differences are there between the human and chimpanzee genomes?
30,000,000
What percentage of human genes have an identical homologue in chimpanzees?
29%
On average, how many amino acid differences are there per gene between humans and chimpanzees?
2 amino acids
In a gene expression study comparing human and chimpanzee cerebral cortex, how many genes showed human-specific changes?
91
What percentage of the genes that showed human-specific changes in the cerebral cortex study exhibited increased expression in humans?
90%
Which process involves inferring adaptive amino acid changes in proteins?
Measuring selection on protein-coding genes
What is the purpose of inferring lineage-specific evolution?
Determine genetic and genomic changes that have made us human
Which type of changes are measured when selecting 'for' particular amino acids in proteins?
Non-synonymous nucleotide substitutions
What does inferring ancestral states for genes involve?
Determining the genetic makeup of genes in the past
What is the main focus when inferring recent 'selective sweeps' in the human genome?
Measuring selection on protein-coding genes
'Codon usage' is most relevant to which aspect of molecular evolution?
'Adaptive amino acid change'
Test your knowledge on the fundamental concepts of molecular evolution including speciation, homologs, and sequence similarity. Adapted from course slides by Assistant Prof. Cemalettin Bekpen and other academic sources.
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