DNA Motifs
Similar to protein motifs, gene motifs are the actual combination of nucleic acids (the As, Gs, Ts, and Cs) that make up the gene. Motifs are generally highly conserved between species but the small differences are what make species unique from one another. The differences in gene motifs lead to the different amino acids which therefore change the protein motifs. To generate the motifs below I compared the DNA sequences for Humans, Horses, Dogs, and Mice into the program MEME.
Analysis and Discussion
The larger the letter at a position is, the more common it was between the databases. For example, for Motif 1, the second through the fifth positions were AGAAG in all of the compared sequences but the sixth position was C in most species but A one of them. Many nucleotides are the same across all of the species, but it is the sites that they are different that allows us to compare the sequences for the different functions of the motifs.