Concerted evolution of duplicated protein-coding genes in Drosophila

Very rapid rates of gene conversion were observed between duplicated alpha-amylase-coding sequences in Drosophila melanogaster. This gene conversion process was also seen in the related species Drosophila erecta. Specifically, there is virtual sequence identity between the coding regions of the two genes within each species, while the sequence divergence between species is close to that expected based on their phylogenetic relationship. The flanking, noncoding regions are much more highly diverged and do not appear to be subject to gene conversion. Comparison of amylase sequences between the two species provides a clear demonstration that recurrent gene conversion does indeed lead to the concerted evolution of the gene pair.