More evidence of an evolutionary ‘arms race’ between genes and selfish genetic elements

University of Rochester biologists Daven Presgraves and Christina Muirhead studied the genomes of three closely related species of Drosophila (fruit flies) and found further evidence of an evolutionary arms race at play. Fruit flies are beneficial model organisms because they share about 70 percent of the same genes that cause human diseases and are similar to humans on the molecular level. Credit: University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster