Large-scale analysis of pseudogenes in the human genome

Pseudogenes are considered as genomic fossils: disabled copies of functional genes that were once active in the ancient genome. Recently, whole-genome computational approaches have revealed thousands of pseudogenes in the genomes of the human and other eukaryotes. Identification of these pseudogenes can improve the accuracy of gene annotation. It also offers new insight on the evolutionary history and the stability of the genome as a whole.