Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 24, 2026

The Green Monster Process for the Generation of Yeast Strains Carrying Multiple Gene Deletions
Published on: December 15, 2012
Rapid functional and evolutionary changes follow gene duplication in yeast
Samina Naseeb1, Ryan M Ames1, Daniela Delneri2
1School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK.
Abstract:
Duplication of genes or genomes provides the raw material for evolutionary innovation. After duplication a gene may be lost, recombine with another gene, have its function modified or be retained in an unaltered state. The fate of duplication is usually studied by comparing extant genomes and reconstructing the most likely ancestral states. Valuable as this approach is, it may miss the most rapid evolutionary events. Here, we engineered strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae carrying tandem and non-tandem duplications of the singleton gene IFA38 to monitor (i) the fate of the duplicates in different conditions, including time scale and asymmetry of gene loss, and (ii) the changes in fitness and transcriptome of the strains immediately after duplication and after experimental evolution. We found that the duplication brings widespread transcriptional changes, but a fitness advantage is only present in fermentable media. In respiratory conditions, the yeast strains consistently lose the non-tandem IFA38 gene copy in a surprisingly short time, within only a few generations. This gene loss appears to be asymmetric and dependent on genome location, since the original IFA38 copy and the tandem duplicate are retained. Overall, this work shows for the first time that gene loss can be extremely rapid and context dependent.
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...
Gene Families
Occasionally these regions can be adapted to take on new roles within the organism, becoming novel genes...
Yeast Signaling
Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

