Not exact matches
Rather than supporting a genome
duplication event at the time when yeast evolved to have twice the number of chromosomes, their data indicated that the duplicated
genes had begun to diverge long before.
Unexpectedly, they show that the appearance of duplicated
genes was not caused by a simple
duplication of the whole genome but rather by a mating («hybridization»)
event between two different species.
The other two
genes appeared to be paralogs —
genes that are the result of a
duplication event in the DNA.
«In order for something to evolve,
duplication of a
gene is the most important
event,» Hsu says.
Both of the new studies found that copy number
events involving either
duplication or deletion of the 25 to 30 chromosome - 16
genes — several of which are known to play a role in the developing brain — appear to cause autism.
Although none of the German Neolithic samples carries the copy number expansion of the AMY2B
gene associated with starch digestion, we find that this
gene is present in three copies in NGD, though this is due to a large segmental
duplication that is shared with multiple modern dogs, an
event separate from the tandem AMY2B
duplications.
Altogether, the data presented in this study reinforces the evolutionary importance of the two rounds of whole genome
duplication that occurred in the vertebrate ancestor and sheds light on the differential behaviour of
gene duplicates that arose in these
events.