This website was created as a project for Genetics 677, an undergraduate course at UW Madison.

Gene Homology

Using HomoloGene, 7 homologues (genes that show sequence similarity due to evolution from a common ancestor) were identified in relation to the human WRN gene. Links to their FASTA mRNA sequences can be found below, listed with the name of the respective homologue and corresponding mRNA length.

WRN : 6,256 bp : Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee)
WRN : 5,043 bp : Can familiaris (dog)
Wrn : 6,473 bp : Mus musculus (mouse)
WRN : 4,401 bp : Gallus gallus (chicken)
LOC569495 : 4,403 bp : Danio rerio (zebrafish)
wrn-1 : 3,285 bp : Caenorhabditis elegans (nematode)
Os07g0681600 : 3,114 bp : Oryza sativa (hypothetical protein)

In order to align mRNA sequences, BLASTn (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) was used to compare homologues to human WRN. BLASTn denotes a nucleotide database using a nucleotide query. The program selection was optimzed for "somewhat similar sequences." The expectation value, or E-value, is the number of alignments with scores equivalent to or better than a threshold defined by the algorithm. The lower the E-value, the more significant the score. In the table below, the homologue with the highest mRNA sequence homology to the human WRN gene is Pan troglodytes, the chimpanzee. This is logical, because among the listed homologes, the chimpanzee is most closely related to humans. The homologue with the lowest mRNA sequence homology is the hypothetical protein, Oryza sativa.
 

---

References

1. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Gene conserved in eukaryota. HomoloGene. Bethesda (MD): HUGO gene nomenclature committee; March 2010. 
2. Basic Local Alignment Search Tool [Internet]. Besthesda (MD): National Institute of Health; c2009 [cited 2010 Mar 15].

---

Max Wilson ([email protected])
January 21, 2010
gen677.weebly.com