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A Simple Evolutionary Model of Genetic Robustness After Gene Duplication
1The Laurence H. Baker Center in Bioinformatics on Biological Statistics, Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Program of Ecological and Evolutionary Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA. xgu@iastate.edu.
Journal of Molecular Evolution
|August 1, 2022
Summary
Gene duplication maintains robustness through genetic buffering and duplicate compensation. Essential genes rely solely on compensation, while dispensable genes use both mechanisms, influencing evolutionary paths.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary Biology
- Genetics
- Systems Biology
Background:
- Gene duplication is a key evolutionary mechanism.
- Genetic robustness is maintained by buffering and compensation.
- Essential vs. dispensable genes exhibit different duplication responses.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate evolutionary scenarios of genetic robustness post-gene duplication.
- Analyze duplicate gene pairs based on ancestral essentiality.
- Compare duplication patterns in yeast and mouse.
Main Methods:
- Formulated a mixture model for analyzing duplicate pairs (DD, DE, EE).
- Applied the model to yeast and mouse duplicate pairs from whole-genome duplications (WGD).
- Analyzed proportions of essentiality for ancestral dispensability (O+) and essentiality (O-).
Main Results:
- Proportion of essentiality was higher for ancestral essential genes (O-) than ancestral dispensable genes (O+).
- PE(O+) was statistically significant (~20%) in mouse duplicates, but negligible in yeast.
- Yeast duplicates showed a negligible PE(O+), suggesting rapid sub-functionalization.
Conclusions:
- Findings support roles for both sub-functionalization and neo-functionalization after gene duplication.
- Sub-functionalization appears to be a faster evolutionary process than neo-functionalization.
- Comparative analysis of yeast and mouse WGDs provides insights into gene duplication evolution.
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