Approximately 70% of genes found in yeast share functional homologs in humans.
"70% of the genes that yeast have are shared by humans" (said at 0:05:10)
The claim overstates the proportion of yeast genes that share functional orthologs in humans. In comparative genomics, approximately 30% of Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes have identifiable human orthologs, though a higher proportion of conserved human disease-associated genes have yeast counterparts. Furthermore, systematic functional testing of orthologous essential genes demonstrates that roughly 47% of tested essential yeast genes can be successfully humanized (functionally replaced by their human orthologs to rescue lethal growth defects), rather than 70% of all yeast genes.
- partial: Evolution. Systematic humanization of yeast genes reveals conserved functions and genetic … (Science (New York, N.Y.) 2015)
"To determine whether genes retain ancestral functions over a billion years of evolution and to identify principles of deep evolutionary divergence, we replaced 414 essential yeast genes with their human orthologs, assaying for complementation of lethal growth defects upon loss of the yeast genes. Nearly half (47%) of the yeast genes could be successfully humanized." (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi) - context: Humanization of yeast genes with multiple human orthologs reveals functional divergence be… (PLoS biology 2020)
"Despite over a billion years of evolutionary divergence, several thousand human genes possess clearly identifiable orthologs in yeast, and many have undergone lineage-specific duplications in one or both lineages." (abstract, background, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi)