A new study suggests that the octopus's brain is similar to the human's as we first theorized. The findings add to the search for the evolutionary resemblance between our features and other animals alongside ape species.
For many years, humans were believed to share the same origin as the apes. However, it was also established that people might have links to other animals aside from the closest species we had been aligned with throughout ancient times.
Jumping Genes Existing in Human Brain Also Found in Octopus
In the latest evolutionary research, experts have found one of these clues that could point out our similarities to other species. According to their data, our brain organ shares a 'jumping gene' with the brains of octopuses.
The jumping genes specified in the paper were identified to be present in the brains of humans and two separate octopus species, particularly in the Octopus bimaculoides and the Octopus vulgarisms, Brain Tomorrow reports.
In the human body, sequences known as transposons cover 45 percent of the entire genetics. These types of sequences are also considered the jumping genes, types determined by biologists with features that could displace themselves from one point to another of an individual's genetic structure, could shuffle, and even duplicate.
Scientists suggest that these sequences are commonly silent and eventually lose their ability to move around an individual's genome. Other kinds of these elements even become inactive because of the changes brought by the generations of evolution, while some remained composed and were able to build a strong cellular mechanism that protected them from incurring significant modification.
The study authors say that most of the genomes they identified are categorized under the Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements (LINE). This group of sequences is still present in the human genome up to this date and is likely to be active.
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Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements and Convergent Evolution
The functions of LINE jumping genes are associated with a range of cognitive abilities, including memory and learning, experts say. In the study, many jumping genes were also found in the specified octopus species, but while most of them are inactive, the LINE family particularly serves as an essential element in their cognitive abilities, too.
Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) Neurobiology Sector specialist and lead author of the research Remo Sanges explained in the institute's press release that the discovery of the LINE genome group in a couple of octopus species is important for us to confirm that these jumping genes have essential functions more than copy and paste.
Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn's Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms expert and co-author of the study Giuseppe Petrosino added that the similarities they discovered through LINE between humans and octopuses are considered a type of convergent evolution, a phenomenon where distinct species which develop in their way from each other share the same molecular process independently according to the response of their similar needs.
The study was published in BMC Biology, titled "Identification of LINE retrotransposons and long non-coding RNAs expressed in the octopus brain."
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