Platypus globin genes and flanking loci suggest a new insertional model for beta-globin evolution in birds and mammals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Vertebrate alpha (alpha)- and beta (beta)-globin gene families exemplify the way in which genomes evolve to produce functional complexity. From tandem duplication of a single globin locus, the alpha- and beta-globin clusters expanded, and then were separated onto different chromosomes. The previous finding of a fossil beta-globin gene (omega) in the marsupial alpha-cluster, however, suggested that duplication of the alpha-beta cluster onto two chromosomes, followed by lineage-specific gene loss and duplication, produced paralogous alpha- and beta-globin clusters in birds and mammals. Here we analyse genomic data from an egg-laying monotreme mammal, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), to explore haemoglobin evolution at the stem of the mammalian radiation.

Results

SUBMITTER: Patel VS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2529266 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature