Phylogeny:
Phylogeny is used to compare different species, organisms, or genes as they evolve over time. The most common way of doing this is comparing the genetic material (DNA/mRNA/Protein sequences) of the species/organisms/genes in question. Based on the differences found, a phylogenic tree can be constructed to illustrated the evolutionary relationship found and can help us understand what type of evolutionary mechanisms occurred over time. There are a variety of programs that are available, some of which can be found here, when trying to construct a tree. Note that there is not a single perfect program, and that different programs use different algorithms when constructing phylogenic trees. That is why it is important to use and compare multiple programs when trying to construct a phylogenic tree.
Gene phylogeny uses a DNA sequence of interest (such as ATM) and subjects it to an alignment program such as BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) which then compares the sequence to other known sequences (details on this program are given in [1]).By using this tool one is able to compare their gene of interest to other known DNA sequences present in other organisms and see how related those various organisms are to the one which the gene of interest is from, which in this case would be humans. Unfortunately the ATM DNA sequence is very large which makes using BLAST difficult. This is why protein phylogeny was primarily used and the information regarding those results can be found on the protein phylogeny page.
Gene phylogeny uses a DNA sequence of interest (such as ATM) and subjects it to an alignment program such as BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) which then compares the sequence to other known sequences (details on this program are given in [1]).By using this tool one is able to compare their gene of interest to other known DNA sequences present in other organisms and see how related those various organisms are to the one which the gene of interest is from, which in this case would be humans. Unfortunately the ATM DNA sequence is very large which makes using BLAST difficult. This is why protein phylogeny was primarily used and the information regarding those results can be found on the protein phylogeny page.
References:
1. Dereeper A., Audic S., Claverie J., Blanc G. BLAST-EXPLORER helps you building datasets for phylogenetic analysis. BMC Evol Biol. 2010 Jan 12;10:8. PMID:20067610
This web page was produced as an assignment for Genetics 677, an undergraduate course at UW-Madison