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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Phylogenetic Diversification Of The Globin Gene Superfamily In Chordates, Jay F. Storz, Juan C. Opazo, Federico G. Hoffmann May 2011

Phylogenetic Diversification Of The Globin Gene Superfamily In Chordates, Jay F. Storz, Juan C. Opazo, Federico G. Hoffmann

Jay F. Storz Publications

Phylogenetic reconstructions provide a means of inferring the branching relationships among members of multigene families that have diversified via successive rounds of gene duplication and divergence. Such reconstructions can illuminate the pathways by which particular expression patterns and protein functions evolved. For example, phylogenetic analyses can reveal cases in which similar expression patterns or functional properties evolved independently in different lineages, either through convergence, parallelism, or evolutionary reversals. The purpose of this article is to provide a robust phylogenetic framework for interpreting experimental data and for generating hypotheses about the functional evolution of globin proteins in chordate animals. To do …


Differential Loss And Retention Of Cytoglobin, Myoglobin, And Globin-E During The Radiation Of Vertebrates, Federico G. Hoffmann, Juan C. Opazo, Jay F. Storz Jan 2011

Differential Loss And Retention Of Cytoglobin, Myoglobin, And Globin-E During The Radiation Of Vertebrates, Federico G. Hoffmann, Juan C. Opazo, Jay F. Storz

Jay F. Storz Publications

If rates of postduplication gene retention are positively correlated with levels of functional constraint, then gene duplicates that have been retained in a restricted number of taxonomic lineages would be expected to exhibit relatively low levels of sequence conservation. Paradoxical patterns are presented by gene duplicates that have been retained in a small number of taxa but which are nonetheless subject to strong purifying selection relative to paralogous members of the same multigene family. This pattern suggests that such genes may have been co-opted for novel, lineage-specific functions. One possible example involves the enigmatic globin-E gene (GbE), which …


New Genes Originated Via Multiple Recombinational Pathways In The Β-Globin Gene Family Of Rodents, Frederico Hoffmann, Juan Opazo, Jay F. Storz Dec 2008

New Genes Originated Via Multiple Recombinational Pathways In The Β-Globin Gene Family Of Rodents, Frederico Hoffmann, Juan Opazo, Jay F. Storz

Jay F. Storz Publications

Species differences in the size or membership composition of multigene families can be attributed to lineage-specific additions of new genes via duplication, losses of genes via deletion or inactivation, and the creation of chimeric genes via domain shuffling or gene fusion. In principle, it should be possible to infer the recombinational pathways responsible for each of these different types of genomic change by conducting detailed comparative analyses of genomic sequence data. Here, we report an attempt to unravel the complex evolutionary history of the β-globin gene family in a taxonomically diverse set of rodent species. The main objectives were: 1) …


Differential Loss Of Embryonic Globin Genes During The Radiation Of Placental Mammals, Juan C. Opazo, Federico Hoffmann, Jay F. Storz Sep 2008

Differential Loss Of Embryonic Globin Genes During The Radiation Of Placental Mammals, Juan C. Opazo, Federico Hoffmann, Jay F. Storz

Jay F. Storz Publications

The differential gain and loss of genes from homologous gene families represents an important source of functional variation among the genomes of different species. Differences in gene content between species are primarily attributable to lineage-specific gene gains via duplication and lineage-specific losses via deletion or inactivation. Here, we use a comparative genomic approach to investigate this process of gene turnover in the β-globin gene family of placental mammals. By analyzing genomic sequence data from representatives of each of the main superordinal clades of placental mammals, we were able to reconstruct pathways of gene family evolution during the basal radiation of …


Rapid Rates Of Lineage-Specific Gene Duplication And Deletion In The Α-Globin Gene Family, Federico G. Hoffmann, Juan C. Opazo, Jay F. Storz Jan 2008

Rapid Rates Of Lineage-Specific Gene Duplication And Deletion In The Α-Globin Gene Family, Federico G. Hoffmann, Juan C. Opazo, Jay F. Storz

Jay F. Storz Publications

Phylogeny reconstructions of the globin gene families have revealed that paralogous genes within species are often more similar to one another than they are to their orthologous counterparts in closely related species. This pattern has been previously attributed to mechanisms of concerted evolution such as interparalog gene conversion that homogenize sequence variation between tandemly duplicated genes and therefore create the appearance of recent common ancestry. Here we report a comparative genomic analysis of the α-globin gene family in mammals that reveal a surprisingly high rate of lineage-specific gene duplication and deletion via unequal crossing-over. Results of our analysis reveal that …


Genetic Evidence For Long-Term Population Decline In A Savannah Dwelling Primate: Inferences From A Hierarchical Bayesian Model, Jay F. Storz, Mark A. Beaumont, Susan C. Alberts Jul 2002

Genetic Evidence For Long-Term Population Decline In A Savannah Dwelling Primate: Inferences From A Hierarchical Bayesian Model, Jay F. Storz, Mark A. Beaumont, Susan C. Alberts

Jay F. Storz Publications

The purpose of this study was to test for evidence that savannah baboons (Papio cynocephalus) underwent a population expansion in concert with a hypothesized expansion of African human and chimpanzee populations during the late Pleistocene. The rationale is that any type of environmental event sufficient to cause simultaneous population expansions in African humans and chimpanzees would also be expected to affect other codistributed mammals. To test for genetic evidence of population expansion or contraction, we performed a coalescent analysis of multilocus microsatellite data using a hierarchical Bayesian model. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulations were used to estimate …