Repression and loss of gene expression outpaces activation and gain in recently duplicated fly genes.

ABSTRACT: Evolutionists widely acknowledge that regulatory genetic changes are of paramount importance for morphological and genomic evolution. Nevertheless, mechanistic complexity and a paucity of data from nonmodel organisms have prevented testing and quantifying universal hypotheses about the macroevolution of gene regulatory mechanisms. Here, we use a phylogenetic approach to provide a quantitative demonstration of a previously hypothesized trend, whereby the evolutionary rate of repression or loss of gene expression regions is significantly higher than the rate of activation or gain. Such a trend is expected based on case studies in regulatory evolution and under models of molecular evolution where duplicated genes lose duplicated expression patterns in a complementary fashion. The trend is important because repression of gene expression is a hypothesized mechanism for the origin of evolutionarily novel morphologies through specialization.

SUBMITTER: Oakley TH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1544222 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature