Journal
GENOME RESEARCH
Volume 12, Issue 12, Pages 1854-1859Publisher
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB PRESS, PUBLICATIONS DEPT
DOI: 10.1101/gr.6049
Keywords
-
Ask authors/readers for more resources
New genes that originated by various molecular mechanisms are an essential component in understanding the evolution of genetic systems. We investigated the pattern of origin of the genes created by retroposition in Drosophila. We surveyed the whole Drosophila melanogaster genome for such new retrogenes and experimentally analyzed their functionality and evolutionary process. These retrogenes, functional as revealed by the analysis of expression, substitution, and population genetics, show a surprisingly asymmetric pattern in their origin. There is a significant excess of retrogenes that originate from the X chromosome and retropose to autosomes; new genes retroposed from autosomes are scarce. Further, we found that most of these X-derived autosomal retrogenes had evolved a testis expression pattern. These observations may be explained by natural selection favoring those new retrogenes that moved to autosomes and avoided the spermatogenesis X inactivation, and suggest the important role of genome position for the origin of new genes.
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