If a protein common to two different species has many amino acid differences, what can be concluded?

1 Answer
Jun 29, 2017

See below.

Explanation:

Based on the number of differences between the base pairs of the DNA for a particular protein in two species, we can determine (or at least make a good educated guess) how similar or different the two species are from each other on the evolutionary timeline.

In this case, since we are given that there are many amino acid differences, that means that many of the corresponding base pairs would also be different. This information tells us that the species are rather different in terms of evolution. Hence, we can conclude that the species diverged on the evolutionary timeline rather not so recently, so they would be very evolutionar-ily different.

I hope that helps!