Research
Cis -regulation and natural selection in the evolution of human DNA methylation
eLife · By Alexander L Starr ·
The Brief
- eLife published a research article on cis-regulation and natural selection in the evolution of human DNA methylation.
- The article addresses whether gene expression divergence from chimpanzees explains human-specific traits.
- Theory suggests changes to cis-regulatory elements may underlie these differences; the article examines this for DNA methylation.
Why it matters
It links epigenetic regulation and natural selection to human-chimpanzee differences, which is relevant to researchers studying human evolution and gene regulation.
Who’s affected
- evolutionary biologists
- geneticists and epigenetics researchers
- #dna methylation
- #cis-regulation
- #natural selection
- #human evolution
- #epigenetics
The vast collection of human-specific traits—such as our unique morphology, cognition, behavior, and diseases—has long been attributed to gene expression divergence between us and our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Theory suggests that changes to cis -regulatory elements…
Timeline
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Cis -regulation and natural selection in the evolution of human DNA methylation