Chromosome 8 Open Reading Frame 59 (C8orf59)

Chromosome 8 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 8 spans about 145 million base pairs (the building material of DNA) and represents between 4.5 and 5.0% of the total DNA in cells. The chromosome has two arms, 8p and 8q. The short arm, 8p, has about 45 million base pairs, about 1.5% of the genome, and includes 484 genes and 110 pseudogenes; about 8% of its genes are involved in brain development and function, and about 16% are involved in cancer. A unique feature of 8p is a big region of about 15 megabases that appears to have a high mutation rate, and which shows an immense divergence between human and chimpanzee, suggesting that its high mutation rates have contributed to the evolution of the human brain.