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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...

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Autores principales: Schiffer, Philipp H., Gravemeyer, Jan, Rauscher, Martina, Wiehe, Thomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
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.
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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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