Evolutionarily new sequences expressed in tumors

BACKGROUND: Earlier we suggested the concept of the positive evolutionary role of tumors. According to this concept, tumors provide conditions for the expression of evolutionarily new and/or sleeping genes in their cells. Thus, tumors are considered as evolutionary proving ground or reservoir of expression. To support this concept we have previously characterized in silico and experimentally a new class of human tumor-related transcribed sequences. RESULTS: In this article we describe results of further studies of previously described tumor-related sequences. The results of molecular phylogeny studies, Southern hybridization experiments and computational comparison with genomes of other species are presented. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that these previously described tumor-related human transcripts are also relatively evolutionarily new.