{"id":167533,"date":"2023-07-14T14:28:48","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T19:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/research-reveals-butterflies-moths-share-ancient-blocks-of-dna"},"modified":"2023-07-14T14:28:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T19:28:48","slug":"research-reveals-butterflies-moths-share-ancient-blocks-of-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/research-reveals-butterflies-moths-share-ancient-blocks-of-dna","title":{"rendered":"Research reveals Butterflies, moths share ancient \u2018blocks\u2019 of DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/research-reveals-butterflies-moths-share-ancient-blocks-of-dna.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to new research, butterflies and moths share \u201cblocks\u201d of DNA that are more than 200 million years old. Scientists from the Universities of Exeter (UK), L\u00fcbeck (Germany) and Iwate (Japan) devised a tool to compare the chromosomes (DNA molecules) of different butterflies and moths.<\/p>\n<p>They found blocks of chromosomes that exist in all moth and butterfly species, and also in Trichoptera \u2013 aquatic caddisflies that shared a common ancestor with moths and butterflies some 230 million years ago. Moths and butterflies (collectively called Lepidoptera) have widely varying numbers of chromosomes \u2013 from 30 to 300 \u2013 but the study\u2019s findings show remarkable evidence of shared blocks of homology (similar structure) going back through time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDNA is compacted into individual particles or chromosomes that form the basic units of inheritance,\u201d said Professor Richard ffrench-Constant, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter\u2019s Penryn Campus in Cornwall. \u201cIf genes are on the same \u2018string\u2019, or chromosome, they tend to be inherited together and are therefore \u2018linked\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to new research, butterflies and moths share \u201cblocks\u201d of DNA that are more than 200 million years old. Scientists from the Universities of Exeter (UK), L\u00fcbeck (Germany) and Iwate (Japan) devised a tool to compare the chromosomes (DNA molecules) of different butterflies and moths. They found blocks of chromosomes that exist in all moth [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}