Skip Navigation



MBE Advance Access published online on January 4, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn004
This Article
Right arrow Advance Access manuscript (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
25/3/591    most recent
msn004v1
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 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 arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hoffmann, F. G.
Right arrow Articles by Storz, J. F.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hoffmann, F. G.
Right arrow Articles by Storz, J. F.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. 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@oxfordjournals.org

Research Article

Rapid rates of lineage-specific gene duplication and deletion in the {alpha}-globin gene family

Federico G. Hoffmann, Juan C. Opazo{dagger} and Jay F. Storz*

School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 68588

* Corresponding Author: Jay F. Storz, School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 68588, email: jstorz2{at}unl.edu, Fax: (402) 472-2083, Phone: (402) 472-1114

Received for publication November 26, 2007. Revision received December 19, 2007. Accepted for publication January 1, 2008.

Phylogeny reconstructions of the globin gene families have revealed that paralogous genes within species are often more similar to one another than they are to their orthologous counterparts in closely related species. This pattern has been previously attributed to mechanisms of concerted evolution such as interparalog gene conversion that homogenize sequence variation between tandemly duplicated genes and therefore create the appearance of recent common ancestry. Here we report a comparative genomic analysis of the {alpha}-globin gene family in mammals that reveals a surprisingly high rate of lineage-specific gene duplication and deletion via unequal crossing-over. Results of our analyses reveal that patterns of sequence similarity between paralogous {alpha}-like globin genes from the same species are only partly explained by concerted evolution between pre-existing gene duplicates. In many cases, sequence similarity between paralogous sequences from the same species is attributable to recent ancestry between the products of de novo gene duplications. As a result of this surprisingly rapid rate of gene gain and loss, many mammals possess {alpha}-like globin genes that have no orthologous counterparts in closely related species. The resultant variation in gene copy number among species may represent an important source of regulatory variation that affects physiologically important aspects of blood-oxygen transport and aerobic energy metabolism.

Key Words: birth-and-death evolution • concerted evolution • gene duplication • gene family • {alpha}-globin • hemoglobin

{dagger} Current address: Instituto de Ecologia y Evolucion, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Valdivia, Chile.


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
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
J. C. Opazo, F. G. Hoffmann, and J. F. Storz
Differential loss of embryonic globin genes during the radiation of placental mammals
PNAS, September 2, 2008; 105(35): 12950 - 12955.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 GeneticsHome page
J. F. Storz, F. G. Hoffmann, J. C. Opazo, and H. Moriyama
Adaptive Functional Divergence Among Triplicated {alpha}-Globin Genes in Rodents
Genetics, March 1, 2008; 178(3): 1623 - 1638.
[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.