Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 14, 2026

Single-Copy Gene Locus Chromatin Purification in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Published on: November 17, 2023
Protein subcellular relocalization in the evolution of yeast singleton and duplicate genes
Abstract:
Gene duplication is the primary source of new genes, but the mechanisms underlying the functional divergence and retention of duplicate genes are not well understood. Because eukaryotic proteins are localized to subcellular structures and localization can be altered by a single amino acid replacement, it was recently proposed that protein subcellular relocalization (PSR) plays an important role in the functional divergence and retention of duplicate genes. Although numerous examples of distinct subcellular localizations of paralogous proteins have been reported, it is unknown whether PSR occurs more frequently after gene duplication than without duplication. By analyzing experimentally determined and computationally predicted genome-wide protein subcellular localization data of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and two other fungi (Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Kluyveromyces waltii), we show that even singleton genes have an appreciable rate of relocalization in evolution and that duplicate genes do not relocalize more frequently than singletons. These results suggest that subcellular relocalization is unlikely to have been a major mechanism for duplicate gene retention and functional divergence at the genomic scale.
Related Concept Videos
Gene Duplication and Divergence
The duplicated copies of the gene are called Paralogs. Paralogs with similar sequences and functions form a gene family. Across several species, a large number of gene families are characterized.
Gene Families
Occasionally these regions can be adapted to take on new roles within the organism, becoming novel genes...
Protein Complexes with Interchangeable Parts
The SCF ubiquitin ligase is a protein complex of five individual proteins. This complex attaches ubiquitin to other target proteins to mark them for degradation. In order to...
Yeast Signaling
Exon Recombination
Exon shuffling follows “splice frame rules.” Each exon has three reading...
Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes

