Dec 23, 2006, 12:47 GMT
Singapore - Researchers from Singapore and the United States have found that humans and the elephant shark share a surprisingly large amount of DNA fragments, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
The revelation could have future implications for medical treatments, as DNA in the human genome controls genes that make proteins which are crucial to the body's development, The Straits Times said.
Disruption in the control of these genes is believed to cause many human illnesses. Scientists have been comparing the genome of species such as the zebrafish with that of humans to better understand how genes functions.
The team from Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and the US-based J Craig Venter Institute started work on the elephant shark, found in the waters off New Zealand and southern Australia, last year.
The shark was found to share about 5,000 common DNA fragments with humans, double that of the zebrafish.
Associate Professor Byrappa Venkatesh, the IMCB's lead researcher for the project, said it will take at least two more years to sequence the entire shark genome.
Your Talkback on this Story