Comparing the retention mechanisms of tandem duplicates and retrogenes in human and mouse genomes

BACKGROUND: Multiple models have been proposed to interpret the retention of duplicated genes. In this study, we attempted to compare whether the duplicates arising from tandem duplications and retropositions are retained by the same mechanisms in human and mouse genomes. RESULTS: Both sequence and expression similarity analyses revealed that tandem duplicates tend to be more conserved, whereas retrogenes tend to be more divergent. The duplicability of tandem duplicates is also higher than that of retrogenes. However, positive selection seems to play significant roles in the retention of both types of duplicates. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that dosage effect is more prevalent in the retention of tandem duplicates, while 'escape from adaptive conflict' (EAC) effect is more prevalent in the retention of retrogenes.