Quantifying the influence of genetic context on duplicated mammalian genes.

ABSTRACT: Gene duplication is a fundamental part of evolutionary innovation. While single-gene duplications frequently exhibit asymmetric evolutionary rates between paralogs, the extent to which this applies to multi-gene duplications remains unclear. In this study, we investigate the role of genetic context in shaping evolutionary divergence within multi-gene duplications, leveraging microsynteny to differentiate source and target copies. Using a dataset of 193 mammalian genome assemblies and a bird outgroup, we systematically analyze patterns of sequence divergence between duplicated genes and reference orthologs. We find that target copies, those relocated to new genomic environments, exhibit elevated evolutionary rates compared to source copies in the ancestral location. This asymmetry is influe

SUBMITTER: Moffett AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11996522 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature