Humans compensate for missing genes

摘要

Many genes may be dispensable. Each of 3,222 British people with Pakistani heritage carries, on average, mutations in 140 genes that stop those genes from working, researchers in England and the United States report online March 3 in Science. Examination of those people's exomes, the small portion of the genome that codes for proteins, revealed that among a subset of 821 participants, a total of 781 genes were rendered obsolete by "loss-of-function" mutations. Those genes include 422 that scientists didn't know people could live without and still be healthy.