Evolutionary signatures amongst disease genes permit novel methods for gene prioritization and construction of informative gene-based networks.

ABSTRACT: Genes involved in the same function tend to have similar evolutionary histories, in that their rates of evolution covary over time. This coevolutionary signature, termed Evolutionary Rate Covariation (ERC), is calculated using only gene sequences from a set of closely related species and has demonstrated potential as a computational tool for inferring functional relationships between genes. To further define applications of ERC, we first established that roughly 55% of genetic diseases posses an ERC signature between their contributing genes. At a false discovery rate of 5% we report 40 such diseases including cancers, developmental disorders and mitochondrial diseases. Given these coevolutionary signatures between disease genes, we then assessed ERC's ability to prioritize known disease g

SUBMITTER: Priedigkeit N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4334549 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature