Cargando…

Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability

BACKGROUND: The forces underlying genome architecture and organization are still only poorly understood in detail. Overlapping genes (genes partially or entirely overlapping) represent a genomic feature that is shared widely across biological organisms ranging from viruses to multi-cellular organism...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Huvet, Maxime, Stumpf, Michael PH
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4161906/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25159814
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-721
_version_ 1782334619976204288
author Huvet, Maxime
Stumpf, Michael PH
author_facet Huvet, Maxime
Stumpf, Michael PH
author_sort Huvet, Maxime
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The forces underlying genome architecture and organization are still only poorly understood in detail. Overlapping genes (genes partially or entirely overlapping) represent a genomic feature that is shared widely across biological organisms ranging from viruses to multi-cellular organisms. In bacteria, a third of the annotated genes are involved in an overlap. Despite the widespread nature of this arrangement, its evolutionary origins and biological ramifications have so far eluded explanation. RESULTS: Here we present a comparative approach using information from 699 bacterial genomes that sheds light on the evolutionary dynamics of overlapping genes. We show that these structures exhibit high levels of plasticity. CONCLUSIONS: We propose a simple model allowing us to explain the observed properties of overlapping genes based on the importance of initiation and termination of transcriptional and translational processes. We believe that taking into account the processes leading to the expression of protein-coding genes hold the key to the understanding of overlapping genes structures.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4161906
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-41619062014-09-19 Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability Huvet, Maxime Stumpf, Michael PH BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: The forces underlying genome architecture and organization are still only poorly understood in detail. Overlapping genes (genes partially or entirely overlapping) represent a genomic feature that is shared widely across biological organisms ranging from viruses to multi-cellular organisms. In bacteria, a third of the annotated genes are involved in an overlap. Despite the widespread nature of this arrangement, its evolutionary origins and biological ramifications have so far eluded explanation. RESULTS: Here we present a comparative approach using information from 699 bacterial genomes that sheds light on the evolutionary dynamics of overlapping genes. We show that these structures exhibit high levels of plasticity. CONCLUSIONS: We propose a simple model allowing us to explain the observed properties of overlapping genes based on the importance of initiation and termination of transcriptional and translational processes. We believe that taking into account the processes leading to the expression of protein-coding genes hold the key to the understanding of overlapping genes structures. BioMed Central 2014-08-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4161906/ /pubmed/25159814 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-721 Text en © Huvet and Stumpf; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Huvet, Maxime
Stumpf, Michael PH
Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
title Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
title_full Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
title_fullStr Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
title_full_unstemmed Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
title_short Overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
title_sort overlapping genes: a window on gene evolvability
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4161906/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25159814
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-721
work_keys_str_mv AT huvetmaxime overlappinggenesawindowongeneevolvability
AT stumpfmichaelph overlappinggenesawindowongeneevolvability