This indicates that the differences observed in these particular genes might be caused by the difference in human and chimpanzee diets.įurthermore, the diet-related genes also appear to have evolved faster than other genes - protein and promoter sequences of these genes changed faster than expected, possibly because of adaptation to new diets.Ĭitation: Somel M, Creely H, Franz H, Mueller U, Lachmann M, et al (2008) Human and Chimpanzee Gene Expression Differences Replicated in Mice Fed Different Diets.

A significant fraction of the genes that changed in the mouse livers, had previously been observed as different between humans and chimpanzees. No such differences were observed in the mouse brains. His- torically, data describing chimpanzee diets stem. The chimpanzee diet was clearly distinct from the two human diets in its effect on the liver - thousands of differences were observed in the levels at which genes were expressed in the mouse livers. Comparative data on the diets of extant primates inform hypotheses about hominin resource use. The researchers fed laboratory mice one of three diets: a raw fruit and vegetable diet fed to chimpanzees in zoos, a human diet consisting of food served at the Institute cafeteria or a pure fast food menu from the local McDonald's™ (the latter caused the mice to significantly gain weight). However, to date, the influence of diet on the physiological and genetic differences between humans and other apes has not been widely examined.īy feeding laboratory mice different human and chimp diets over a mere two week period, researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, were able to reconstruct some of the physiological and genetic differences observed between humans and chimpanzees. It has been hypothesized that adopting these dietary patterns played a key role during human evolution.

Not only do we consume much more meat and fat, but we also cook our food. Diet diff.-Human genes with mouse orthologs showing diet-related human-chimpanzee expression differences in liver All diff.-Human genes with mouse orthologs showing human-chimpanzee expression differences in liver All exprs.-Human genes with mouse orthologs expressed in liver All genes-All available human genes with mouse orthologs.Humans consume a distinct diet compared to other apes. The error bars represent 95% bootstrap confidence intervals for the median, calculated by resampling from the divergence estimate distributions for each gene set 1,000 times. Median sequence divergence estimates between humans and chimpanzees is shown for promoter regions (left) and for amino acid sequences (Ka/Ki) (right). Sequence divergence of genes potentially involved in human-chimpanzee dietary differences. A total of 5,546 genes with detectable expression in both data sets show no significant expression differences in either data set.īiological processes significantly enriched in genes potentially involved in human-chimpanzee dietary differences. The number in the overlap between the two circles (red) indicates genes showing significant expression differences in both data sets. The numbers of human-mouse orthologous genes differentially expressed (at ANOVA p<0.01) between mice fed human diets and a chimpanzee diet in liver (green circle), and genes differentially expressed (at t-test p<0.01) between human and chimpanzee livers (orange circle).

Overlap between liver gene expression differences in mice and primates. The labels are: Chimp-chimpanzee diet Cafe-human cafeteria diet F.Food-human fast food diet Cafe+F.Food-human cafeteria and fast food diets together. The lighter coloured stem of each column shows the percentage of diet-related genes that would be expected by chance alone, calculated by means of 1,000 permutations. The height of each column indicates the percentage of genes showing expression differences (at ANOVA p<0.01) between mice fed two different diets, in liver (green) or brain (blue). The effects diet on gene expression in mice.

Chimpanzee diet