A team at the Hübner and Diecke Labs at the Max Delbrück Center has shown how human and non-human primate hearts differ genetically. The study, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research , reveals evolutionary adaptations in human hearts and provides new insights into cardiac disease. Humans are 98–99% genetically similar to chimpanzees.
What then accounts for our differences? Over the years, researchers have shown that the regulation of gene expression —when, where, and by how many genes are switched on—is in large part responsible for our divergent evolutionary trajectories. Now, researchers in the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences Lab of Professor Norbert Hübner and the Pluripotent Stem Cells Platform of Dr. Sebastian Diecke at the Max Delbrück Center have unveiled surprising differences in gene expression in the hearts of humans and non-human primates.
The research, led by Dr. Jorge Ruiz-Orera, points to adaptations in the way genes are regulated that distinguish our hearts from those of our closest evolutionary relatives. It also serves as a warning against extrapolating research from animal hearts to human hearts.
"One of the most surprising findings was how gene regulation in the human heart differs so much from other primates," says Ruiz-Orera. In terms of anatomy, most mammalian hearts are similar. "But we have many unique evolutionary innovations in terms of gene regulation or translation of proteins," he adds.
The researchers found hundreds of ge.