Thank you both for answering.

K


"Rob" wrote in message
...
wrote:
K Barrett wrote:
Scientists sequenced the genome of the honeybee.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061028/fob1.asp

In this article the reporter writes "Among the novelties of the
honeybee,
Apis mellifera, are its 170 genes for odor receptors."

(snip)

But if this is the first time a species' genome has been looked at and
if
there are only 5 other insects that have had their genome cracked, much
less
studied, then 'How do they know?"

By comparison with known odor receptor genes in fruit flies, Drosophila
melanogaster. It doesn't actually matter how many insects have had
their genomes sequenced. What matters is that fruitflies have been
sequenced, AND their genes have been mutated to see what they do.


Yep. We bioinformatics geeks do this all the time. It doesn't much
matter that we haven't figured out all the honeybee genes, it does matter
that we know a lot about related genes in other organisms.

The 170 genes were probably mostly predicted computationally. We know
what coding DNA looks like from experience with other organisms. We
assume that it is similar in 'unknown' organisms. It is a computational
model (probably several different ones) that of course isn't perfect.
Perhaps some of those 170 genes aren't real, or slightly mis-predicted.
But we might have missed a few, too.

--
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2a) See rule 1
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