Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on April 20, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2005 22(7):1535-1538; doi:10.1093/molbev/msi149
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Material
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
22/7/1535    most recent
msi149v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (4)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Koufopanou, V.
Right arrow Articles by Burt, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Koufopanou, V.
Right arrow Articles by Burt, A.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Letter

Degeneration and Domestication of a Selfish Gene in Yeast: Molecular Evolution Versus Site-Directed Mutagenesis

Vassiliki Koufopanou and Austin Burt

Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berks, United Kingdom

E-mail: v.koufopanou{at}imperial.ac.uk.

VDE is a homing endonuclease gene in yeasts with an unusual evolutionary history including horizontal transmission, degeneration, and domestication into the mating-type switching locus HO. We investigate here the effects of these features on its molecular evolution. In addition, we correlate rates of evolution with results from site-directed mutagenesis studies. Functional elements have lower rates of evolution than degenerate ones and higher conservation at functionally important sites. However, functionally important and unimportant sites are equally likely to have been involved in the evolution of new function during the domestication of VDE into HO. The domestication event also indicates that VDE has been lost in some species and that VDE has been present in yeasts for more than 50 Myr.

Key Words: VDE • HEG • site-directed mutagenesis • molecular evolution • Saccharomycetaceae


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Biol. Chem.Home page
A. Bakhrat, K. Baranes, O. Krichevsky, I. Rom, G. Schlenstedt, S. Pietrokovski, and D. Raveh
Nuclear Import of Ho Endonuclease Utilizes Two Nuclear Localization Signals and Four Importins of the Ribosomal Import System
J. Biol. Chem., May 5, 2006; 281(18): 12218 - 12226.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.