Reconstruction of molecular phylogeny of extant hominoids from DNA sequence data

Am J Phys Anthropol. 1991 Jan;84(1):75-85. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.1330840107.

Abstract

Evolutionary distance matrices of the extant hominoids are computed from DNA sequence data, and hominoid DNA phylogenies are reconstructed by applying the neighbor-joining method to these distance matrices. The chimpanzee is clustered with the human in most of the phylogenetic trees thus obtained. The proportion of the distance between human and chimpanzee to that between human/chimpanzee and orangutan is estimated. Both mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA show a similar value (0.44), which is close to values derived from DNA-DNA hybridization data.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Base Sequence
  • DNA / chemistry*
  • DNA, Mitochondrial / chemistry
  • Hominidae / classification*
  • Hominidae / genetics
  • Humans
  • Nucleic Acid Hybridization
  • Pan troglodytes / classification*
  • Pan troglodytes / genetics
  • Phylogeny*
  • Pongo pygmaeus / classification*
  • Pongo pygmaeus / genetics

Substances

  • DNA, Mitochondrial
  • DNA