The complex relationship of gene duplication and essentiality

Takashi Makino; Karsten Hokamp; Aoife McLysaght

doi:10.1016/j.tig.2009.03.001

The complex relationship of gene duplication and essentiality

Trends Genet. 2009 Apr;25(4):152-5. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2009.03.001. Epub 2009 Mar 13.

Authors

Takashi Makino¹, Karsten Hokamp, Aoife McLysaght

Affiliation

¹ Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.

PMID: 19285746
DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2009.03.001

Abstract

In yeast and worm, duplicate genes overlap in function so that deleting one of a pair from the genome is less likely to be lethal than deleting a singleton gene. By contrast, previous analyses showed that mouse duplicate genes were as essential as singletons. We show that the relationship between gene duplication and essentiality is complex in multicellular organisms, with developmental genes and genes that were duplicated by whole genome duplication being more essential than other duplicated genes.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Computational Biology
Databases, Genetic
Drosophila / genetics*
Evolution, Molecular
Fungi / genetics
Gene Dosage
Gene Duplication*
Genome
Mice
Models, Biological
Models, Genetic*
Models, Statistical
Phenotype
Species Specificity