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PubMed · 16806566

Is optimal gene order impossible?

Juan F Poyatos·Laurence D Hurst
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Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that yeast genes encoding proteins that are present in the same protein complex tend to be linked and to be co-expressed. More generally, we found that genes that are close to each other in the protein interaction network tend to be linked more often than expected and are often co-expressed. Unexpectedly, we found that linked genes in network proximity have unusually high recombination rates. Because high recombination rates are associated with high rates of genome re-organization, our findings might explain why the clustering of genes in proximity in the network is such a weak effect: there could be a co-evolutionary cycle of physical linkage for co-expression, upwards modification of the recombination rate and concomitant break-up of a cluster. Under such a model an "optimal" gene order is never stable.

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Evolution, MolecularGene OrderGenome, FungalMultigene FamilyRecombination, GeneticSaccharomyces cerevisiaeJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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Juan F Poyatos, Laurence D Hurst. 2006-06-27. Is optimal gene order impossible?. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2006.06.003

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