Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 271, Issue 1534, Pages 89-96Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2560
Keywords
Caenorhabditis elegans; gene duplication; mutational robustness
Categories
Funding
- NIGMS NIH HHS [GM063882-01] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We examine robustness to mutations in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the role of single-copy and duplicate genes in it. We do so by integrating complete genome sequence and microarray gene expression data with results from a genome-scale study using RNA interference (RNAi) to temporarily eliminate the functions of more than 16 000 worm genes. We found that 89% of single-copy and 96% of duplicate genes show no detectable phenotypic effect in an RNAi knock-down experiment. We find that mutational robustness is greatest for closely related gene duplicates, large gene families and similarly expressed genes. We discuss the different causes of mutational robustness in single-copy and duplicate genes, as well as its evolutionary origin.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available