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In biology, homology is similarity in anatomical structures or genes between organisms of different taxa due to shared ancestry, regardless of current functional differences. Evolutionary biology explains homologous structures as retained heredity from a common ancestor after having been subjected to adaptive modifications for different ...
Sequence homology is the biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a speciation event (orthologs), or a duplication event (paralogs), or else a horizontal (or lateral) gene ...
Comparative anatomy has long served as evidence for evolution, now joined in that role by comparative genomics; [10] it indicates that organisms share a common ancestor. It also assists scientists in classifying organisms based on similar characteristics of their anatomical structures.
Whereas ordinary homology is seen in the pattern of structures such as limb bones of mammals that are evidently related, deep homology can apply to groups of animals that have quite dissimilar anatomy: vertebrates (with endoskeletons made of bone and cartilage) and arthropods (with exoskeletons made of chitin) nevertheless have limbs that are constructed using similar recipes or "algorithms".
In his 2014 book Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation, the evolutionary biologist Günter P. Wagner argues for "the study of novelty as distinct from adaptation." He defines novelty as occurring when some part of the body develops an individual and quasi-independent existence, in other words as a distinct and recognisable structure ...
In classical genetics, synteny describes the physical co-localization of genetic loci on the same chromosome within an individual or species. In current biology, synteny more commonly refers to colinearity , i.e. conservation of blocks of order within two sets of chromosomes that are being compared with each other.
Gene conversion is the process by which one DNA sequence replaces a homologous sequence such that the sequences become identical after the conversion. [1] Gene conversion can be either allelic, meaning that one allele of the same gene replaces another allele, or ectopic, meaning that one paralogous DNA sequence converts another.
Homology modeling is for those targets which have homologous proteins with known structure (usually/maybe of same family), while protein threading is for those targets with only fold-level homology found. In other words, homology modeling is for "easier" targets and protein threading is for "harder" targets.