What would happen if you put horse genes into a human, would we grow hooves and a tail? etc

Question: What would happen if you put horse genes into a human, would we grow hooves and a tail? etc
- Keywords:
  body,
  genetic modification,
  horse,
  human,
  human body,
  mutation
Asked by emilydenney to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Leisha, Seyyed on 12 Jun 2012.
- Chris Kettle answered on 12 Jun 2012:
  
  Unlikely. The horses hoof has developed over millions of years of evolution with hand/foot bones shrinking and fusion etc. to get this from a few genes may be impossible. Chances are this type of thing would never be allowed due to ethics, the moral obligation to society. What would be cool would be to make human leg muscles more like horse legs- imagine how fast usain bolt would run then
- Judith Sleeman answered on 12 Jun 2012:
  
  Yikes, definitely would not get ethical approval! Most mammals (and flies and other vertebrates) use the same set of patterning genes to form their basic body plan. They just use them with different timings and in different combinations to get the finished effect. There’s a whole field of biology (evo-devo or evolutionary developmental biology) that looks at this. It’s really fascinating and has expanded so much in recent years with lots of animals having their whole genomes sequenced. So you would have to do some VERY major genetic experiments to make a human with hooves and a tail.

Question: What would happen if you put horse genes into a human, would we grow hooves and a tail? etc