ABSTRACT
Although the reports on the human and chimpanzee genomes comparison are increasing in number, the available data are insufficient to make definite conclusions on the genetic basis of human phenotype evolution. However, even direct genome-wide comparison of pongids and human will certainly reveal not only causative genetic aberrations but also a much higher amount of random mutations fixed in the human genome either as neutral mutations or due to co-selection with adaptive mutations. As a result, we will face a problem of finding a needle in a hay stack, the informational noise will totally mask the evolutionary important genetic changes. There is no strict way to distinguish between causative genetic differences and genetic noise. Therefore, to single out the genetic changes which led to phenotypic transformations on the evolutionary way to the modern human, it will be necessary to use a well-known and welltried way of creating and verifying hypotheses. In particular, a hypothesis about a significant role of retrotransposons in human evolution is being verified during last years in our laboratory. These mobile elements might induce differences in the regulatory systems of primate genomes.
