Ubiquitins revisited: further examples of within- and between-locus concerted evolution

Ubiquitin genes provide a model for studying the effects of concerted evolution on the evolution of a family of short repeated sequences. Previous work has demonstrated the occurrence of within-locus concerted evolution and raised the question of the effectiveness of between-locus concerted evolution for ubiquitin repeats. In this study comparative analysis of additional nucleotide sequences of ubiquitin tandem repeats provides further details of within-locus concerted evolution. Moreover, the availability of multiple polyubiquitin loci and ubiquitin fusion loci within a species makes possible the detection of between-locus concerted evolution. These data indicate that concerted evolution is an effective force for homogenizing repeats between, as well as within, loci.