The recent origin of the Sdic gene cluster in the melanogaster subgroup |
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Authors: | Rita Ponce |
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Institution: | (1) Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Departamento de Biologia Vegetal, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande edifício C2, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal;(2) Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA |
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Abstract: | Gene families are composed of closely related genes and are an important part of eukaryotic genomes. In the proximal region
of the X chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster there is a cluster of four tandem Sdic genes, located between the gene Cdic and the gene AnnX. Sdic is a chimeric gene that encodes a novel protein with sperm-specific expression. It had been hypothesized that the Sdic gene cluster was formed after the split of D. melanogaster and D. simulans. To study the evolution of this cluster, the sequence of this region was studied in several Drosophilidae species. In all species analyzed, Sdic genes are absent and AnnX and Cdic are adjacent to each other. The results allowed the inference of the ancestral situation and the reconstruction of the evolution
of the cluster, and confirm that the Sdic cluster was indeed formed in the lineage that gave rise to D. melanogaster, being one of the youngest gene clusters known.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
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Keywords: | Gene duplication Novel gene Gene family Gene cluster Sdic X chromosome |
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