Evolutionary rate and gene expression across different brain regions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The evolutionary rate of a protein is a basic measure of evolution at the molecular level. Previous studies have shown that genes expressed in the brain have significantly lower evolutionary rates than those expressed in somatic tissues.

Results

We study the evolutionary rates of genes expressed in 21 different human brain regions. We find that genes highly expressed in the more recent cortical regions of the brain have lower evolutionary rates than genes highly expressed in subcortical regions. This may partially result from the observation that genes that are highly expressed in cortical regions tend to be highly expressed in subcortical regions, and thus their evolution faces a richer set of functional constraints. The frequency of mammal-specific and primate-s

SUBMITTER: Tuller T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2592720 | biostudies-literature | 2008

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature