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Evolution

Gene duplicate holds back its sister

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 11, page 593 (2010)Cite this article

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In the honeybee (Apis) lineage a tandem duplication of the feminizer (fem) gene has given rise to the paralogous gene complementary sex determiner (csd). Whereas fem has maintained its original function in sex determination, csd has evolved a new function to become an initiating signal in the sex determination pathway.

Hasselmann and colleagues compared the ratio of non-synonymous (n) to synonymous (s) mutations in fem in two contexts: in Apis species, which have both fem and csd, and in other bee species that have fem only. The n/s ratio was significantly lower in the Apis lineage, which suggests that fem has been subject to increased purifying selection — that is, mutations that affect the function of fem have been selected against. Hasselmann and colleagues ruled out the alternative possibilities that the rate of synonymous substitution had increased in fem genes of Apis bees, or that the genetic linkage between fem and csd caused the reduced rate of fem evolution.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Hasselmann, M., Lechner, S., Schulte, C. & Beye, M. Origin of a function by tandem gene duplication limits the evolutionary capability of its sister copy. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 13378–13383 (2010)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Soskine, M. & Tawfik, D. S. Mutational effects and the evolution of new protein functions. Nature Rev. Genet. 11, 572–582 (2010)

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Authors
  1. Louisa Flintoft
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Flintoft, L. Gene duplicate holds back its sister. Nat Rev Genet 11, 593 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2850

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2850

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