The evolutionary demography of duplicate genes

Clicks: 416
ID: 112170
1970
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality Improving Quality
0.0 /100
Combines engagement data with AI-assessed academic quality
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Abstract
Although gene duplication has generally been viewed as a necessary source of material for the origin of evolutionary novelties, the rates of origin, loss, and preservation of gene duplicates are not well understood. Applying steady-state demographic techniques to the age distributions of duplicate genes censused in seven completely sequenced genomes, we estimate the average rate of duplication of a eukaryotic gene to be on the order of 0.01/gene/million years, which is of the same order of magnitude as the mutation rate per nucleotide site. However, the average half-life of duplicate genes is relatively small, on the order of 4.0 million years. Significant interspecific variation in these rates appears to be responsible for differences in species-specific genome sizes that arise as a consequence of a quasi-equilibrium birth-death process. Most duplicated genes experience a brief period of relaxed selection early in their history and a minority exhibit the signature of directional selection, but those that survive more than a few million years eventually experience strong purifying selection. Thus, although most theoretical work on the gene-duplication process has focused on issues related to adaptive evolution, the origin of a new function appears to be a very rare fate for a duplicate gene. A more significant role of the duplication process may be the generation of microchromosomal rearrangements through reciprocal silencing of alternative copies, which can lead to the passive origin of post-zygotic reproductive barriers in descendant lineages of incipient species.
Reference Key
lynch1970journalthe Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Michael Lynch;John S. Conery;Michael Lynch;John S. Conery;
Journal journal of structural and functional genomics
Year 1970
DOI
doi:10.1023/A:1022696612931
URL
Keywords

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.