BERLIN, July 2: An international group of scientists has for the first time deciphered the DNA sequence of a chimpanzee chromosome, showing it to be 98.5 per cent identical to a human chromosome.

Hans Lehrach, director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, said Wednesday the new data was “a further important step to the better understanding of human evolution and biology”.

The team of scientists from eight research institutes in Germany, China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan have mapped out the complete sequence of chromosome 22 of the chimpanzee, the primate most closely related to humans.

The 33.2 megabase chromosome has been deciphered with 99.998 per cent accuracy, the scientists said. The deciphered chromosome is seen as the equivalent of the human chromosome 21, with both about the same length and having 243 genes, according to German scientists.

Chromosome 21 is the most studied chromosome in biomedical research, containing the genes leading to Down syndrome and other disorders.—dpa