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Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

The genomes of eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of sequence which do not code for proteins or RNAs. Although some of these regions do contain crucial regulatory sequences, the vast majority of this DNA serves no known function. Typically, these regions of the genome are the ones in which the fastest change, in evolutionary terms, is observed, because there is typically little to no selection pressure acting on these regions to preserve their sequences.
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Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

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The genomes of eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of sequence which do not code for proteins or RNAs. Although some of these regions do contain crucial regulatory sequences, the vast majority of this DNA serves no known function. Typically, these regions of the genome are the ones in which the fastest change, in evolutionary terms, is observed, because there is typically little to no selection pressure acting on these regions to preserve their sequences.
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Genome comparison is one of the excellent ways to interpret the evolutionary relationships between organisms. The basic principle of genome comparison is that if two species share a common feature, it is likely encoded by the DNA sequence conserved between both species. The advent of genome sequencing technologies in the late 20th century enabled scientists to understand the concept of conservation of domains between species and helped them to deduce evolutionary relationships across diverse...

The Evidence for Evolution

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Gene Families

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Gene families consist of groups of genes proposed to have originated from a common ancestor. Typically these arise through events in which a gene or genes are mistakenly duplicated during cell division. Unlike their parent genes (which are subject to selection pressure to maintain function), these gene copies do not need to preserve their sequences and may evolve at a relatively faster rate.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2026

A Bioinformatics Pipeline for Investigating Molecular Evolution and Gene Expression using RNA-seq

A Bioinformatics Pipeline for Investigating Molecular Evolution and Gene Expression using RNA-seq

Published on: May 28, 2021

Evolutionary plasticity determination by orthologous groups distribution.

Rodrigo J S Dalmolin¹, Mauro A A Castro, José L Rybarczyk Filho

¹Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Basic Health Sciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. rodrigo.dalmolin@ufrgs.br

|May 19, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

We developed a new index to measure gene family evolutionary plasticity and conservation across eukaryotes. This index, based on gene family abundance and diversity, helps identify conserved and plastic gene networks in species like yeast and humans.

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Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

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Published on: February 3, 2023

Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Genomics
Bioinformatics

Background:

Genetic plasticity allows gene networks to tolerate structural and component alterations.
Traditionally, evolutionary studies focus on nucleotide changes in related species.
Analyzing gene family distribution across diverse species offers insights into plasticity and conservation.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop and validate an index for quantifying evolutionary plasticity and conservation of orthologous groups.
To investigate the relationship between gene family abundance/diversity and evolutionary distance.
To identify plastic and conserved gene networks in eukaryotes.

Main Methods:

Analysis of 4,850 Eukaryotic Clusters of Orthologous Groups (KOGs) from the STRING database, encompassing 481,421 proteins from 55 eukaryotes.
Development of an evolutionary plasticity index based on KOG abundance and diversity.
Estimation of average evolutionary distance among proteins within orthologous groups.

Main Results:

A strong correlation was found between the evolutionary plasticity index and average evolutionary distance.
Genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae linked to inviability and Mus musculus linked to early lethality exhibited low evolutionary plasticity.
Gene networks in yeast and humans could be differentiated into higher and lower plasticity areas using the proposed index.

Conclusions:

Gene family distribution patterns provide valuable insights into evolutionary plasticity.
The developed index effectively discriminates between conserved and plastic orthologous groups across eukaryotes.
This approach enhances understanding of genetic plasticity and evolutionary dynamics.