Abstract
THE evolutionary origins of human DNA are expressed in the fact that some 20 per cent of it is identical with the DNA of other mammals, 8 per cent with that of birds and 5 per cent with that of fish1,3. A search for possible remnants of the bacterial genome in human chromosomal DNA by DNA-hybridization is complicated by the greatly unequal size of their genome: the human genome contains about 3.5 × 109 nucleotide pairs, whereas the bacterial genome, for example, that of Escherichia coli, has only some 5 × 106 nucleotide pairs. If any similarity exists it will therefore involve less than 0.2 per cent of the human genome. If labelled human DNA is used with ordinary bacterial DNA in agar, such low values are below the sensitivity of the DNA agar column method4. In these conditions no similarity has been found between labelled DNA from HeLa cells and E. coil-DNA3.
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DE LEY, J., PARK, I. Dissimilarity between Human and Bacterial Deoxyribonucleic Acids. Nature 211, 1002 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2111002a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2111002a0
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