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Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites?
Gene duplication is an important mechanism of molecular evolution. It offers a fast track to modification, diversification, redundancy or rescue of gene function. However, duplication may also be neutral or (slightly) deleterious, and often ends in pseudo-geneisation. Here, we investigate the phylog...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5041008/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27509525 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life6030032 |
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author | Schiffer, Philipp H. Gravemeyer, Jan Rauscher, Martina Wiehe, Thomas |
author_facet | Schiffer, Philipp H. Gravemeyer, Jan Rauscher, Martina Wiehe, Thomas |
author_sort | Schiffer, Philipp H. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Gene duplication is an important mechanism of molecular evolution. It offers a fast track to modification, diversification, redundancy or rescue of gene function. However, duplication may also be neutral or (slightly) deleterious, and often ends in pseudo-geneisation. Here, we investigate the phylogenetic distribution of ultra large gene families on long and short evolutionary time scales. In particular, we focus on a family of NACHT-domain and leucine-rich-repeat-containing (NLR)-genes, which we previously found in large numbers to occupy one chromosome arm of the zebrafish genome. We were interested to see whether such a tight clustering is characteristic for ultra large gene families. Our data reconfirm that most gene family inflations are lineage-specific, but we can only identify very few gene clusters. Based on our observations we hypothesise that, beyond a certain size threshold, ultra large gene families continue to proliferate in a mechanism we term “run-away evolution”. This process might ultimately lead to the failure of genomic integrity and drive species to extinction. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5041008 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50410082016-10-05 Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? Schiffer, Philipp H. Gravemeyer, Jan Rauscher, Martina Wiehe, Thomas Life (Basel) Opinion Gene duplication is an important mechanism of molecular evolution. It offers a fast track to modification, diversification, redundancy or rescue of gene function. However, duplication may also be neutral or (slightly) deleterious, and often ends in pseudo-geneisation. Here, we investigate the phylogenetic distribution of ultra large gene families on long and short evolutionary time scales. In particular, we focus on a family of NACHT-domain and leucine-rich-repeat-containing (NLR)-genes, which we previously found in large numbers to occupy one chromosome arm of the zebrafish genome. We were interested to see whether such a tight clustering is characteristic for ultra large gene families. Our data reconfirm that most gene family inflations are lineage-specific, but we can only identify very few gene clusters. Based on our observations we hypothesise that, beyond a certain size threshold, ultra large gene families continue to proliferate in a mechanism we term “run-away evolution”. This process might ultimately lead to the failure of genomic integrity and drive species to extinction. MDPI 2016-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5041008/ /pubmed/27509525 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life6030032 Text en © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Opinion Schiffer, Philipp H. Gravemeyer, Jan Rauscher, Martina Wiehe, Thomas Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? |
title | Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? |
title_full | Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? |
title_fullStr | Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? |
title_full_unstemmed | Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? |
title_short | Ultra Large Gene Families: A Matter of Adaptation or Genomic Parasites? |
title_sort | ultra large gene families: a matter of adaptation or genomic parasites? |
topic | Opinion |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5041008/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27509525 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life6030032 |
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