Evolutionary conservation and selection of human disease gene orthologs in the rat and mouse genomes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Model organisms have contributed substantially to our understanding of the etiology of human disease as well as having assisted with the development of new treatment modalities. The availability of the human, mouse and, most recently, the rat genome sequences now permit the comprehensive investigation of the rodent orthologs of genes associated with human disease. Here, we investigate whether human disease genes differ significantly from their rodent orthologs with respect to their overall levels of conservation and their rates of evolutionary change.

Results

Human disease genes are unevenly distributed among human chromosomes and are highly represented (99.5%) among human-rodent ortholog sets. Differences are revealed in evolutionary conservation and selection be

SUBMITTER: Huang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC463309 | biostudies-literature | 2004

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature