Evolutionary Patterns of RNA-Based Duplication in Non-Mammalian Chordates
2011

RNA-Based Duplication in Non-Mammalian Chordates

Sample size: 10 publication Evidence: high

Author Information

Author(s): Chen Ming, Zou Ming, Fu Beide, Li Xin, Vibranovski Maria D., Gan Xiaoni, Wang Dengqiang, Wang Wen, Long Manyuan, He Shunping

Primary Institution: Key Laboratory of Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, People's Republic of China

Hypothesis

What are the evolutionary patterns of RNA-based duplication in non-mammalian chordates?

Conclusion

RNA-based duplication generates many functional genes and significantly contributes to the evolution of non-mammalian genomes.

Supporting Evidence

  • A larger fraction of non-mammalian retrocopies was under strong evolutionary constraints than mammalian retrocopies.
  • Intact retrocopies were found to be more likely to be under functional constraints.
  • More than 40% of retrocopies were expressed in non-mammalian chordates compared to only 27% in humans.
  • Many functional retrogenes were expressed in the brain and gonads of non-mammalian chordates.

Takeaway

This study looked at how certain genes can duplicate themselves in non-mammals, showing that many of these duplicates can still work well.

Methodology

The study screened ten non-mammalian chordate genomes for retrocopies and analyzed their evolutionary patterns.

Participant Demographics

Included various non-mammalian chordate species such as fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles.

Statistical Information

P-Value

p<0.01

Statistical Significance

p<0.01

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1371/journal.pone.0021466

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