Evidence for de novo evolution of testis-expressed genes in the Drosophila yakuba/Drosophila erecta clade.

ABSTRACT: The mutational origin and subsequent evolution of de novo genes, which are hypothesized to be genes of recent origin that are not obviously related to ancestral coding sequence, are poorly understood. However, accumulating evidence suggests that such genes may often function in male reproduction. Here we use testis-derived expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from Drosophila yakuba to identify genes that have likely arisen either in D. yakuba or in the D. yakuba/D. erecta ancestor. We found several such genes, which show testis-biased expression and are often X-linked. Comparative data indicate that three of these genes have very short open reading frames, which suggests the possibility that a significant number of testis-biased de novo genes in the D. yakuba/D. erecta clade may be noncoding RNA

SUBMITTER: Begun DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1894579 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature