An international research team, including researchers from the Department of Biology at the University of Hamburg, sequenced the complete genomes of 6 primate species that are closely related to humans. Their analyses facilitate deeper insights into the evolution of primates and form the basis for future genomic research.
Ever since the first sequence of the human genome was generated in 2001, researchers have been striving to also decode primate genomes, as evolutionary history reconstructions and disease investigations would benefit greatly from this knowledge. However, all previous genomic studies had gaps, because the actual sequences were incomplete or the primate species examined were not a representative sample.
These gaps are now closed thanks to an international research team headed by Evan E. Eichler from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, USA. His team decoded the full genome of 5 primate species, including chimpanzees, Borneo orangutans, Sumatra orangutans, and the genome of their close relatives, the siamangs.
"The outstanding result of this remarkable team collaboration is an average genome sequencing accuracy of less than one error per 500,000 base pairs. Thus, a total of 215 chromosomes could be completely sequenced," says Tobias Lenz from the Department of Biology at the University of Hamburg. Lenz’s working group mainly focused on decoding immunogens, which are particularly important for certain proteins of the immune system.
Advanced sequencing technologies and methods of genome analysis enabled the researchers to fully sequence genomes. This new data helps to refine previous analyses significantly. Future comparative genome and evolutionary studies can build on more meaningful sources. This also helps us to better understand how these species are related, what are their species-specific traits, and how similar they are to humans, for instance on the cell level.
"This new genomic data, providing a blueprint of all cells in the body, will allow us to gain a better understanding of why some pathogens can spread more easily to other species and thus also to humans," says Lenz.
Original publication:
Yoo, D., Rhie, A., Hebbar, P. et al.: Complete sequencing of ape genomes. Nature (2025)
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08816-3
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