Corals -- More Complex Than You?

The humble coral may possess as many genes – and possibly even more – than humans do. And remarkably, although it is very distant from humans in evolutionary terms, it has many of the immune system genes that protect people against disease. In fact, it is possible some of these were pioneered by corals. Corals are among the simplest animals in the world – yet they may possess a set of genes as large and complex as our own, says Professor David Miller of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies and the ARC Special Research Centre for the Molecular Genetics of Development. “Four years ago researchers in this field were predicting that coral would be found to have about 10,000 genes – but we’ve found almost that many already and clearly have a long way to go yet. “Based on the rate of gene discovery, we estimate that corals have as many as 20 or 25,000 genes, compared with the human complement of 20-23,000.”... Whole article "ScienceDaily":[ www.sciencedaily.com]

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