Pseudogene is a DNA fragment with high sequence similarity to the corresponding functional gene. Because of accumulation of multiple mutations, pseudogenes have lost their original functions. Previous studies indicated that pseudogenes are dysfunctional relatives of the corresponding functional genes, and are noises in the process of genome evolution. However, with the development of molecular biotechnologies, more and more studies have demonstrated that pseudogenes possess important biologic functions. For example, some pseudogene could regulate the expression of functional genes by competitively binding to the miRNAs, some could produce endogenous small interference RNAs to negatively regulate the expression of functional genes, and some even could encode functional proteins. In this review, we summarize the recent research progresses of pseudogenes through four aspects: the classification, identification, function, and particularly the roles in cancers.
假基因是一段具有与功能基因相似的DNA序列,但由于存在许多突变以致失去了原有的功能。过去的研究认为假基因是没有功能的DNA片段,是基因组进化过程中产生的噪音。然而,随着分子生物学技术的发展,越来越多的研究证明了假基因具有重要的生物学功能。假基因可与功能基因竞争性结合miRNA,从而调控功能基因的表达;假基因还可产生内源性小干扰RNA抑制功能基因的表达;甚至有的假基因还可以编码具有功能的蛋白质。文章通过假基因的分类、假基因的识别、假基因的功能和假基因与癌症疾病的关系等方面综述了假基因研究的最新进展。.