Convergent gene loss following gene and genome duplications creates single-copy families in flowering plants
The importance of gene gain through duplication has long been
appreciated. In contrast, the importance of gene loss has only recently
attracted attention. Indeed, studies in organisms ranging
from plants to worms and humans suggest that duplication of some genes
might be better tolerated than that of others. Here
we have undertaken a large-scale study to investigate the existence of
duplication-resistant genes in the sequenced genomes of
20 flowering plants. We demonstrate that there is a large set of genes
that is convergently restored to single-copy status following
multiple genome-wide and smaller scale duplication events. We rule out the
possibility that such a pattern could be explained by
random gene loss only and therefore propose that there is selection
pressure to preserve such genes as singletons. This is further
substantiated by the observation that angiosperm single-copy genes do not
comprise a random fraction of the genome, but instead are often involved in
essential housekeeping functions that are highly conserved across all
eukaryotes. Furthermore, single-copy genes are generally expressed more
highly and in more tissues than non–single-copy genes, and they exhibit
higher sequence conservation. Finally, we propose different hypotheses
to explain their resistance against duplication.
De Smet, R., Adams, K., Vandepoele, K., Van Montagu, M., Maere, S., Van de Peer, Y. (2013) Convergent gene loss following gene and genome duplications creates single-copy families in flowering plants. PNAS 110(8):2898-903. |
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