MBE Advance Access published online on October 12, 2009
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msp242
Research Article |
Heterogeneous patterns of gene expression diversification in mammalian gene duplicates
1 Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (UPF-CSIC)
2 Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
3 Fundació Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica (FIMIM), Barcelona, Spain
4 Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain
* To whom correspondence should be addressed, Corresponding author contact information: M.Mar Albà, Biomedical Informatics Research Programme (GRIB), Fundació Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica (FIMIM), Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), Barcelona 08003, Spain, Phone: +34933160516, FAX: +34933160550, email: malba{at}imim.es
Received for publication July 20, 2009. Revision received September 10, 2009. Revision received September 29, 2009. Accepted for publication September 30, 2009.
Gene duplication is a major mechanism for molecular evolutionary innovation. Young gene duplicates typically exhibit elevated rates of protein evolution and, according to a number of recent studies, increased expression divergence. However, the nature of these changes is still poorly understood. To gain novel insights into the functional consequences of gene duplication we have undertaken an in-depth analysis of a large dataset of gene families containing primate and/or rodent-specific gene duplicates. We have found a clear tendency towards an increase in protein, promoter and expression divergence with increasing number of duplication events undergone by each gene since the human-mouse split. In addition, gene duplication is significantly associated with a reduction in expression breadth and intensity. Interestingly, it is possible to identify three main groups regarding the evolution of gene expression following gene duplication. The first group, which comprises around 25% of the families, shows patterns compatible with tissue expression partitioning. The second and largest group, comprising 33-53% of the families, shows broad expression of one of the gene copies and reduced, overlapping, expression of the other copy or copies. This can be attributed, in most cases, to loss of expression in several tissues of one or more gene copies. Finally, a substantial number of families, 19-35%, maintain a very high level of tissues expression overlap (>0.8) after tens of millions of years of evolution. These families may have been subject to selection for increased gene dosage.
Key Words: gene duplication • gene expression divergence • promoter sequence divergence