A few months ago the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (IHGS
C) published a 61-page paper on the human genome (IHGSC, Nature 409 (2001)
860). Here comments will be presented on some points of the paper that were
previously investigated in our laboratory, and some misunderstandings and
misconceptions about the organization and the evolutionary history of the h
uman genome will be discussed. A very recent article on the same subject (E
yre-Walker and Hurst, Nat. Rev. Genet. 2 (2001) 549) will also be addressed
. The present paper is a complement to two review articles which were publi
shed last year (Bernardi, Gene 241 (2000) 3; Gene 259(1) (2000) 3 1). (C) 2
001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.