Gene Duplication The Genomic Trade in Spare Parts 英文参考文献.docVIP

Primer Gene Duplication: The Genomic Trade in Spare Parts Matthew Hurles I f necessity is the mother of invention, then its father is an inveterate tinkerer, with a large change. Gene duplication provides opportunities to explore this forbidden evolutionary space more widely by generating duplicates of a gene that can ‘wander’ more freely, on condition that between them they continue to supply the original function. is the widespread existence of gene families. Members of a gene family that share a common ancestor as a result of a duplication event are denoted as being paralogous, distinguishing them from orthologous genes in different genomes, which share a common ancestor as a result of a speciation event. Paralogous genes can often be found clustered within a genome, although dispersed paralogues, often with more diverse functions, are also common. garage full of spare parts. Innovation (like homicide) requires motive and opportunity. Clearly, the predominant ‘motive’ during the evolution of a novel gene function is to gain a selective advantage. To understand why gene duplications represent the major ‘opportunities’ from which new genes evolve, we must ?rst consider what constrains genic evolution. The vast majority of genes in every genome are selectively constrained, in that most nucleotide changes that alter the ?tness of the organism are deleterious. How do we know this? Comparisons between genomes clearly demonstrate that coding sequences diverge at slower rates than non-coding regions, largely due to a de?cit of mutations at positions where a base change would cause an amino-acid Susumu Ohno was the ?rst to comprehensively elucidate the potential of gene duplication, in his book Evolution by Gene Duplication, published more than 30 years ago (Ohno 1970). The prescience of Ohno’s book is highlighted by the fact that his book has almost certainly been cited more times in the past ?ve years than in the ?rst ?ve years after its publication. Copyright: ? 2004