Evolution of gene order in the genomes of two related yeast species

Changes in gene order between the genomes of two related yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces bayanus var. uvarum were studied. From the dataset of a previous low coverage sequencing of the S. bayanus var. uvarum genome, 35 different synteny breakpoints between neighboring genes and two cases of local gene inversion were characterized in detail. The number and the type of the chromosomal rearrangements that have led to these differences were identified. We show that evolution of gene order in the genomes of these two yeast species is driven mainly by gene duplication onto different chromosomes followed by differential loss of the repeated copies. In addition, local gene inversions also would result from a mechanism of gene duplication, but in an inverted orientation, followed by loss of the original copy. The identification of traces of anciently duplicated genes, called relics, show that the loss of duplicates is more frequently caused by the accumulation of numerous mutations in one of the two copies than by DNA deletion. Surprisingly, gross chromosomal rearrangements such as translocations have only a minor effect on gene order reshuffling as they account for <10% of the synteny breakpoints.