Guinea Pig Porcupine Hamster Chinchilla
Table 1: Comparing Chinchilla and Guinea Pig
Table 2: Comparing Crested Porcupine and Hamster
Table 3: Comparing Crested Porcupine and Chinchilla
Table 4: Comparing Guinea Pig and Hamster
Table 5: Comparing Chinchilla and Hamster
Table 6: Comparing Guinea Pig and Crested Porcupine
Table 7: Concluding Table
The first six tables above compare the four species and as we can see, the last table summarizes the overall data in tables 1-6. Table 7 suggests:
- The order of the three species closer to the Chinchilla is: Guinea Pig, Hamster and Porcupine.
- The order of the three species closer to the Guinea Pig is: Chinchilla, Porcupine and Hamster.
- The order of the three species closer to the Porcupine is: Hamster, Chinchilla and Guinea Pig.
- The order of the three species closer to the hamster is: Porcupine, Chinchilla and Guinea Pig.
The above tables suggest that the four species are not highly related to each other which could be due to the reason that the rodent family is the largest order of placental mammals, with a approximately 2, 050 species. The diversity of species in the rodent family could cause the relatedness of two species to reduce. And in order to investigate the reasoning behind this theory, geneticists around the world have been working on the Human Genome Project which is to sequence our entire DNA and locate all of the functionally important sequences within the DNA, such as genes. The project aims to investigate and discover the genes responsible for certain genetic disorders and to improve diagnoses, treatments and therapies.
The Human Genome Project intends to investigate certain scientific ideas by relating bioinformatics, proteomics and microarrays to the Human Genome Project. Bioinformatics combines biological science, computer science and information technology and amalgamates the data from the genomic research to facilitate the discovery of new biological insights. A database known as the BLAST allows one to compare gene or protein sequence rapidly. It helps find corresponding genes in different organisms. Proteomics is the study of the identities, structures, interactions and abundances of all organisms. The process involves separating the desired proteins into an individual ones and then with the use of bioinformatics, comparing them with to a unique protein. These two processes could lead to the development of new indicators for diagnosing diseases and identifying new targets for therapeutic drugs. Microarrays are an important tool of genomic revolution as it can identify the active genes in a cell. With the use of tiny sequences from thousands of genes, it can differ among various cells.
Conclusion
The above data does not support my hypothesis as my hypothesis stated that the four species will be closely related to each other as they belong to the same family. However, the results above suggest that the pair of the Chinchilla and the Guinea Pig is not highly related to the pair of the Porcupine and the Hamster. Looking at the low identity percentages it seems that even though the four species belong to the same family, they are not completely related to each other. The diagram below is the Rodent phylogeny that explains the relationship between the four species:
The phylogeny explains how closely related the four species are. As we can see, the species: the chinchilla, the guinea pig and the porcupine fall in the same category, however, the hamsters fall in a different one. The above explains that the genes of a hamster do not follow the same pattern as the genes of the other species; it is different to their proteins. This suggests that as the diversity of species in the rodent family increases, the relatedness among the species reduces. The wider the range, lower the relatedness among the species that belong to the family. It is not necessary that the protein sequences in the genes of the species of the same family are similar; they might follow the same pattern till some extent but not completely.
Also, the results above could be different due to the reason that the length of the sequences differed. The length of the sequences above ranged 50-110 which also caused the identity percentage to reduce as the number of nucleotide bases was different. When two sequences with different lengths are compared then eventually the identity percentage reduces because one does not have enough nucleotides in order to be compared to the nucleotides of the other sequence. Therefore, the length of the sequence could also affect the identity percentage.
Research suggests that guinea pigs produce insulin that deviates more strongly than some other mammals belonging to the rodent family. The amino acid sequences of the chinchillas differ from those of the nonhystricomorph-rodents whereas other insulins of species such as Crested Porcupines hold an intermediate position. The insulin sequence of the guinea pig differs from other species in a perspective such as having a lower anabolic activity and an improved growth promoting activity. This specie has lost the capability of forming zinc-binding hexamers and so have porcupines and chinchillas. A molecular evolution of pancreatic ribonuclease allows chinchillas to group with other species such as coypu and casiragua of the rodent family and the guinea pig with cuis and capybara, and both groups together with porcupines. This supports the above diagram and states that hamsters are different compared to most other rodent family species.
Research also suggests that the common insulin gene was duplicated in the ancestors of the rodents, with expression of only one of the two gens in most rodent species. Chinchillas share methionine 29 of the B-chain with the rat and mouse insulin sequence. However, the evidence of two insulin genes in other rodent species other than rat and mouse is negative or week. A hamster has only one insulin gene even though the presence of two insulins in hamster pancreas is reported. Also, only one gene has been found in the guinea pig genome. This suggests that the guinea pig and hamster are somewhat related but not completely which is another reason why they have at least 39.5% of resemblance. Many scientists also suggest the presence of pig/rat-type insulin in the cells of a guinea pig caused by very ancient gene duplication. This could be another reason why the four species are so different from each other.
Most of the results above that I achieve do not support my hypothesis. In future, I would use a larger variety of species for my project, so that could learn more about the differences among different species. I would like to also use a different amino acid protein for my experiment such as hemoglobin so that I could learn more about the differences among the different species caused by different types of proteins. This will help me discover and understand key factors affecting the differences among species; no matter what family they belong to. Next, I would also try to use sequences of equal lengths so that it is a fair test. To conclude, I don’t think that the method requires any changes and cold be redone by the changes made above because the websites I used for my experiment gave me accurate results.
Bibliography
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