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Gene Family
A gene family is a set of several similar genes, formed by duplication of a single original gene, and generally with similar biochemical functions. One such family are the genes for human hemoglobin subunits; the ten genes are in two clusters on different chromosomes, called the α-globin and β-globin loci. These two gene clusters are thought to have arisen as a result of a precursor gene being duplicated approximately 500 million years ago. Genes are categorized into families based on shared nucleotide or protein sequences. Phylogenetic techniques can be used as a more rigorous test. The positions of exons within the coding sequence can be used to infer common ancestry. Knowing the sequence of the protein encoded by a gene can allow researchers to apply methods that find similarities among protein sequences that provide more information than similarities or differences among DNA sequences. If the genes of a gene family encode proteins, the term ''protein family'' is often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phylogenetic Tree Of Mups
In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data and observed heritable traits of DNA sequences, protein amino acid sequences, and Morphology (biology), morphology. The results are a phylogenetic tree—a diagram depicting the hypothesis, hypothetical relationships among the organisms, reflecting their inferred evolutionary history. The tips of a phylogenetic tree represent the observed entities, which can be living Taxon, taxa or fossils. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the taxa represented on the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about directionality of character state transformation, and does not show the origin or "root" of the taxa in questi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PRDX3
Thioredoxin-dependent peroxide reductase, mitochondrial is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''PRDX3'' gene. It is a member of the peroxiredoxin family of antioxidant enzymes. Function This gene encodes a protein with antioxidant function and is localized in the mitochondrion. This gene shows significant nucleotide sequence similarity to the gene coding for the C22 subunit of Salmonella typhimurium alkylhydroperoxide reductase. Expression of this gene product in ''E. coli'' deficient in the C22-subunit gene rescued resistance of the bacteria to alkylhydroperoxide. The human and mouse genes are highly conserved, and they map to the regions syntenic between mouse and human chromosomes. Sequence comparisons with recently cloned mammalian homologues suggest that these genes consist of a family that is responsible for regulation of cellular proliferation, differentiation, and antioxidant functions. Two transcript variants encoding two different isoforms have been found f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Novo Gene Birth
''De novo'' gene birth is the process by which new genes evolve from non-coding DNA. '' De novo'' genes represent a subset of novel genes, and may be protein-coding or instead act as RNA genes. The processes that govern ''de novo'' gene birth are not well understood, although several models exist that describe possible mechanisms by which ''de novo'' gene birth may occur. Although ''de novo'' gene birth may have occurred at any point in an organism's evolutionary history, ancient ''de novo'' gene birth events are difficult to detect. Most studies of ''de novo'' genes to date have thus focused on young genes, typically taxonomically restricted genes (TRGs) that are present in a single species or lineage, including so-called orphan genes, defined as genes that lack any identifiable homolog. It is important to note, however, that not all orphan genes arise ''de novo'', and instead may emerge through fairly well characterized mechanisms such as gene duplication (including retropo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concerted Evolution
Concerted evolution is the phenomenon where paralogous genes within one species are more closely related to one another than to members of the same gene family in closely related species. In other terms, when specific members of a family are investigated, a greater amount of similarity is found within a species rather than between species. This is suggesting that members within this family do not in fact evolve independently of one another. The concept of concerted evolution is a molecular process which leads to the homogenization of DNA sequences. As shown from the diagram on the right, as each organism evolves, it creates a species that is more closely related to their genes than anyone else in their species. This is demonstrated by the different colors of circles. If each different color is representing a different organism in one species, this is showing that once the blue and the orange reproduce, they create organisms that are incredibly alike to them (thus they are repres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transposable Element
A transposable element (TE), also transposon, or jumping gene, is a type of mobile genetic element, a nucleic acid sequence in DNA that can change its position within a genome. The discovery of mobile genetic elements earned Barbara McClintock a Nobel Prize in 1983. There are at least two classes of TEs: Class I TEs or retrotransposons generally function via reverse transcription, while Class II TEs or DNA transposons encode the protein transposase, which they require for insertion and excision, and some of these TEs also encode other proteins. Discovery by Barbara McClintock Barbara McClintock discovered the first TEs in maize (''Zea mays'') at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. McClintock was experimenting with maize plants that had broken chromosomes. In the winter of 1944–1945, McClintock planted corn kernels that were self-pollinated, meaning that the silk (style) of the flower received pollen from its own anther. These kernels came from a long line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unequal Crossing Over
Unequal crossing over is a type of gene duplication or deletion event that deletes a sequence in one strand and replaces it with a duplication from its sister chromatid in mitosis or from its homologous chromosome during meiosis. It is a type of chromosomal crossover between homologous sequences that are not paired precisely. Normally genes are responsible for occurrence of crossing over. It exchanges sequences of different links between chromosomes. Along with gene conversion, it is believed to be the main driver for the generation of gene duplications and is a source of mutation in the genome. Mechanisms During meiosis, the duplicated chromosomes (chromatids) in eukaryotic organisms are attached to each other in the centromere region and are thus paired. The maternal and paternal chromosomes then align alongside each other. During this time, recombination can take place via crossing over of sections of the paternal and maternal chromatids and leads to reciprocal recombination ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyploid
Polyploidy is a condition in which the biological cell, cells of an organism have more than two paired sets of (Homologous chromosome, homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have Cell nucleus, nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two complete sets of chromosomes, one from each of two parents; each set contains the same number of chromosomes, and the chromosomes are joined in pairs of homologous chromosomes. However, some organisms are polyploid. Polyploidy is especially common in plants. Most eukaryotes have diploid somatic cells, but produce haploid gametes (eggs and sperm) by meiosis. A Ploidy, monoploid has only one set of chromosomes, and the term is usually only applied to cells or organisms that are normally diploid. Males of bees and other Hymenoptera, for example, are monoploid. Unlike animals, plants and multicellular algae have Biological life cycle, life cycles with two alternation of generations, alternating multicellular generations. The gamet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whole Genome Duplication
Paleopolyploidy is the result of genome duplications which occurred at least several million years ago (MYA). Such an event could either double the genome of a single species ( autopolyploidy) or combine those of two species ( allopolyploidy). Because of functional redundancy, genes are rapidly silenced or lost from the duplicated genomes. Most paleopolyploids, through evolutionary time, have lost their polyploid status through a process called diploidization, and are currently considered diploids, e.g., baker's yeast, ''Arabidopsis thaliana'', and perhaps humans. Paleopolyploidy is extensively studied in plant lineages. It has been found that almost all flowering plants have undergone at least one round of genome duplication at some point during their evolutionary history. Ancient genome duplications are also found in the early ancestor of vertebrates (which includes the human lineage) near the origin of the bony fishes, and another in the stem lineage of teleost fishes. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Duplication
Gene duplication (or chromosomal duplication or gene amplification) is a major mechanism through which new genetic material is generated during molecular evolution. It can be defined as any duplication of a region of DNA that contains a gene. Gene duplications can arise as products of several types of errors in DNA replication and repair machinery as well as through fortuitous capture by selfish genetic elements. Common sources of gene duplications include ectopic recombination, retrotransposition event, aneuploidy, polyploidy, and replication slippage. Mechanisms of duplication Ectopic recombination Duplications arise from an event termed unequal crossing-over that occurs during meiosis between misaligned homologous chromosomes. The chance of it happening is a function of the degree of sharing of repetitive elements between two chromosomes. The products of this recombination are a duplication at the site of the exchange and a reciprocal deletion. Ectopic recombina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exon Shuffling
Exon shuffling is a molecular mechanism for the formation of new genes. It is a process through which two or more exons from different genes can be brought together ectopically, or the same exon can be duplicated, to create a new exon-intron structure. There are different mechanisms through which exon shuffling occurs: transposon mediated exon shuffling, crossover during sexual recombination of parental genomes and illegitimate recombination. Exon shuffling follows certain splice frame rules. Introns can interrupt the reading frame of a gene by inserting a sequence between two consecutive codons (phase 0 introns), between the first and second nucleotide of a codon (phase 1 introns), or between the second and third nucleotide of a codon (phase 2 introns). Additionally exons can be classified into nine different groups based on the phase of the flanking introns (symmetrical: 0-0, 1-1, 2-2 and asymmetrical: 0–1, 0–2, 1–0, 1–2, etc.) Symmetric exons are the only ones that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudogene
Pseudogenes are nonfunctional segments of DNA that resemble functional genes. Pseudogenes can be formed from both protein-coding genes and non-coding genes. In the case of protein-coding genes, most pseudogenes arise as superfluous copies of functional genes, either directly by gene duplication or indirectly by Reverse transcriptase, reverse transcription of an mRNA transcript. Pseudogenes are usually identified when genome sequence analysis finds gene-like sequences that lack regulatory sequences or are incapable of producing a functional product. Pseudogenes are a type of junk DNA. Most non-bacterial genomes contain many pseudogenes, often as many as functional genes. This is not surprising, since various biological processes are expected to accidentally create pseudogenes, and there are no specialized mechanisms to remove them from genomes. Eventually pseudogenes may be deleted from their genomes by chance of DNA replication or DNA repair errors, or they may accumulate so many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ortholog Paralog Analog Examples
Sequence homology is the homology (biology), biological homology between DNA sequence, DNA, RNA sequence, RNA, or Protein primary structure, protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a speciation event (orthologs), or a Gene duplication, duplication event (paralogs), or else a Horizontal gene transfer, horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer event (xenologs). Homology among DNA, RNA, or proteins is typically inferred from their nucleotide or amino acid sequence similarity. Significant similarity is strong evidence that two sequences are related by evolutionary changes from a common ancestral sequence. Sequence alignment, Alignments of multiple sequences are used to indicate which regions of each sequence are homologous. Identity, similarity, and conservation The term "percent homology" is often used to mean "sequence similarity”, that is the percen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
