Yeast, fish and us

from NPR

…”It’s like peeling an onion,” he says. “Layer after layer after layer is revealed to you. Like in a human body, the first layer is our primate history, the second layer is our mammal history, and on and on and on and on, until you get to the fundamental molecular and cellular machinery that makes our bodies and keeps are cells alive, and so forth.”

Our Inner Yeast

In fact, not only are we related to an ancient fish, but many of the parts critical for making yeast are also critical for making us, says Gavin Sherlock, a geneticist at Stanford University.

“About one-third of the yeast genes have a direct equivalent version that still exists in humans,” he says.

Sherlock says that not only do many of the same genes still exist in humans and yeast, but they’re so similar that you can exchange one for the other.

“There are several hundred examples where you can knock out the yeast gene, put in the human equivalent, and it restores it back to normal,” he says.

Think about it, he says: We have a lot in common with yeast. Yeast consume sugars like we do, yeast make hormones like we do, and yeast have sex — not quite like we do, but sex…

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