Journal
NATURE
Volume 447, Issue 7141, Pages 167-U1Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nature05805
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Funding
- MRC [MC_U137761446] Funding Source: UKRI
- Medical Research Council [MC_U137761446] Funding Source: researchfish
- Medical Research Council [MC_U137761446] Funding Source: Medline
- Wellcome Trust [062023] Funding Source: Medline
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We report a high-quality draft of the genome sequence of the grey, short-tailed opossum ( Monodelphis domestica). As the first metatherian ('marsupial') species to be sequenced, the opossum provides a unique perspective on the organization and evolution of mammalian genomes. Distinctive features of the opossum chromosomes provide support for recent theories about genome evolution and function, including a strong influence of biased gene conversion on nucleotide sequence composition, and a relationship between chromosomal characteristics and X chromosome inactivation. Comparison of opossum and eutherian genomes also reveals a sharp difference in evolutionary innovation between protein-coding and non-coding functional elements. True innovation in protein-coding genes seems to be relatively rare, with lineage-specific differences being largely due to diversification and rapid turnover in gene families involved in environmental interactions. In contrast, about 20% of eutherian conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) are recent inventions that postdate the divergence of Eutheria and Metatheria. A substantial proportion of these eutherian-specific CNEs arose from sequence inserted by transposable elements, pointing to transposons as a major creative force in the evolution of mammalian gene regulation.
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