Gene duplication (or chromosomal duplication or gene amplification) is a major mechanism through which new genetic material is generated during molecular evolution. It can be defined as any duplication of a region of DNA that contains a gene. Gene duplications can arise as products of several types of errors in DNA replication and repair machinery as well as through fortuitous capture by selfish genetic elements. Common sources of gene duplications include ectopic recombination, retrotransposition event, aneuploidy, polyploidy, and replication slippage. [1]
Duplications arise from an event termed unequal crossing-over that occurs during meiosis between misaligned homologous chromosomes. The chance of it happening is a function of the degree of sharing of repetitive elements between two chromosomes. The products of this recombination are a duplication at the site of the exchange and a reciprocal deletion. Ectopic recombination is typically mediated by sequence similarity at the duplicate breakpoints, which form direct repeats. Repetitive genetic elements such as transposable elements offer one source of repetitive DNA that can facilitate recombination, and they are often found at duplication breakpoints in plants and mammals. [2]
Replication slippage is an error in DNA replication that can produce duplications of short genetic sequences. During replication DNA polymerase begins to copy the DNA. At some point during the replication process, the polymerase dissociates from the DNA and replication stalls. When the polymerase reattaches to the DNA strand, it aligns the replicating strand to an incorrect position and incidentally copies the same section more than once. Replication slippage is also often facilitated by repetitive sequences, but requires only a few bases of similarity.[ citation needed ]
Retrotransposons, mainly L1, can occasionally act on cellular mRNA. Transcripts are reverse transcribed to DNA and inserted into random place in the genome, creating retrogenes. Resulting sequence usually lack introns and often contain poly(A) sequences that are also integrated into the genome. Many retrogenes display changes in gene regulation in comparison to their parental gene sequences, which sometimes results in novel functions. Retrogenes can move between different chromosomes to shape chromosomal evolution. [3]
Aneuploidy occurs when nondisjunction at a single chromosome results in an abnormal number of chromosomes. Aneuploidy is often harmful and in mammals regularly leads to spontaneous abortions (miscarriages). Some aneuploid individuals are viable, for example trisomy 21 in humans, which leads to Down syndrome. Aneuploidy often alters gene dosage in ways that are detrimental to the organism; therefore, it is unlikely to spread through populations.
Polyploidy, or whole genome duplication is a product of nondisjunction during meiosis which results in additional copies of the entire genome. Polyploidy is common in plants, but it has also occurred in animals, with two rounds of whole genome duplication (2R event) in the vertebrate lineage leading to humans. [4] It has also occurred in the hemiascomycete yeasts ~100 mya. [5] [6]
After a whole genome duplication, there is a relatively short period of genome instability, extensive gene loss, elevated levels of nucleotide substitution and regulatory network rewiring. [7] [8] In addition, gene dosage effects play a significant role. [9] Thus, most duplicates are lost within a short period, however, a considerable fraction of duplicates survive. [10] Interestingly, genes involved in regulation are preferentially retained. [11] [12] Furthermore, retention of regulatory genes, most notably the Hox genes, has led to adaptive innovation.
Rapid evolution and functional divergence have been observed at the level of the transcription of duplicated genes, usually by point mutations in short transcription factor binding motifs. [13] [14] Furthermore, rapid evolution of protein phosphorylation motifs, usually embedded within rapidly evolving intrinsically disordered regions is another contributing factor for survival and rapid adaptation/neofunctionalization of duplicate genes. [15] Thus, a link seems to exist between gene regulation (at least at the post-translational level) and genome evolution. [15]
Polyploidy is also a well known source of speciation, as offspring, which have different numbers of chromosomes compared to parent species, are often unable to interbreed with non-polyploid organisms. Whole genome duplications are thought to be less detrimental than aneuploidy as the relative dosage of individual genes should be the same.
Comparisons of genomes demonstrate that gene duplications are common in most species investigated. This is indicated by variable copy numbers (copy number variation) in the genome of humans [16] [17] or fruit flies. [18] However, it has been difficult to measure the rate at which such duplications occur. Recent studies yielded a first direct estimate of the genome-wide rate of gene duplication in C. elegans , the first multicellular eukaryote for which such as estimate became available. The gene duplication rate in C. elegans is on the order of 10−7 duplications/gene/generation, that is, in a population of 10 million worms, one will have a gene duplication per generation. This rate is two orders of magnitude greater than the spontaneous rate of point mutation per nucleotide site in this species. [19] Older (indirect) studies reported locus-specific duplication rates in bacteria, Drosophila, and humans ranging from 10−3 to 10−7/gene/generation. [20] [21] [22]
Gene duplications are an essential source of genetic novelty that can lead to evolutionary innovation. Duplication creates genetic redundancy, where the second copy of the gene is often free from selective pressure—that is, mutations of it have no deleterious effects to its host organism. If one copy of a gene experiences a mutation that affects its original function, the second copy can serve as a 'spare part' and continue to function correctly. Thus, duplicate genes accumulate mutations faster than a functional single-copy gene, over generations of organisms, and it is possible for one of the two copies to develop a new and different function. Some examples of such neofunctionalization is the apparent mutation of a duplicated digestive gene in a family of ice fish into an antifreeze gene and duplication leading to a novel snake venom gene [23] and the synthesis of 1 beta-hydroxytestosterone in pigs. [24]
Gene duplication is believed to play a major role in evolution; this stance has been held by members of the scientific community for over 100 years. [25] Susumu Ohno was one of the most famous developers of this theory in his classic book Evolution by gene duplication (1970). [26] Ohno argued that gene duplication is the most important evolutionary force since the emergence of the universal common ancestor. [27] Major genome duplication events can be quite common. It is believed that the entire yeast genome underwent duplication about 100 million years ago. [28] Plants are the most prolific genome duplicators. For example, wheat is hexaploid (a kind of polyploid), meaning that it has six copies of its genome.
Another possible fate for duplicate genes is that both copies are equally free to accumulate degenerative mutations, so long as any defects are complemented by the other copy. This leads to a neutral "subfunctionalization" (a process of constructive neutral evolution) or DDC (duplication-degeneration-complementation) model, [29] [30] in which the functionality of the original gene is distributed among the two copies. Neither gene can be lost, as both now perform important non-redundant functions, but ultimately neither is able to achieve novel functionality.
Subfunctionalization can occur through neutral processes in which mutations accumulate with no detrimental or beneficial effects. However, in some cases subfunctionalization can occur with clear adaptive benefits. If an ancestral gene is pleiotropic and performs two functions, often neither one of these two functions can be changed without affecting the other function. In this way, partitioning the ancestral functions into two separate genes can allow for adaptive specialization of subfunctions, thereby providing an adaptive benefit. [31]
Often the resulting genomic variation leads to gene dosage dependent neurological disorders such as Rett-like syndrome and Pelizaeus–Merzbacher disease. [32] Such detrimental mutations are likely to be lost from the population and will not be preserved or develop novel functions. However, many duplications are, in fact, not detrimental or beneficial, and these neutral sequences may be lost or may spread through the population through random fluctuations via genetic drift.
The two genes that exist after a gene duplication event are called paralogs and usually code for proteins with a similar function and/or structure. By contrast, orthologous genes present in different species which are each originally derived from the same ancestral sequence. (See Homology of sequences in genetics).
It is important (but often difficult) to differentiate between paralogs and orthologs in biological research. Experiments on human gene function can often be carried out on other species if a homolog to a human gene can be found in the genome of that species, but only if the homolog is orthologous. If they are paralogs and resulted from a gene duplication event, their functions are likely to be too different. One or more copies of duplicated genes that constitute a gene family may be affected by insertion of transposable elements that causes significant variation between them in their sequence and finally may become responsible for divergent evolution. This may also render the chances and the rate of gene conversion between the homologs of gene duplicates due to less or no similarity in their sequences.
Paralogs can be identified in single genomes through a sequence comparison of all annotated gene models to one another. Such a comparison can be performed on translated amino acid sequences (e.g. BLASTp, tBLASTx) to identify ancient duplications or on DNA nucleotide sequences (e.g. BLASTn, megablast) to identify more recent duplications. Most studies to identify gene duplications require reciprocal-best-hits or fuzzy reciprocal-best-hits, where each paralog must be the other's single best match in a sequence comparison. [33]
Most gene duplications exist as low copy repeats (LCRs), rather highly repetitive sequences like transposable elements. They are mostly found in pericentronomic, subtelomeric and interstitial regions of a chromosome. Many LCRs, due to their size (>1Kb), similarity, and orientation, are highly susceptible to duplications and deletions.
Technologies such as genomic microarrays, also called array comparative genomic hybridization (array CGH), are used to detect chromosomal abnormalities, such as microduplications, in a high throughput fashion from genomic DNA samples. In particular, DNA microarray technology can simultaneously monitor the expression levels of thousands of genes across many treatments or experimental conditions, greatly facilitating the evolutionary studies of gene regulation after gene duplication or speciation. [34] [35]
Gene duplications can also be identified through the use of next-generation sequencing platforms. The simplest means to identify duplications in genomic resequencing data is through the use of paired-end sequencing reads. Tandem duplications are indicated by sequencing read pairs which map in abnormal orientations. Through a combination of increased sequence coverage and abnormal mapping orientation, it is possible to identify duplications in genomic sequencing data.
The International System for Human Cytogenomic Nomenclature (ISCN) is an international standard for human chromosome nomenclature, which includes band names, symbols and abbreviated terms used in the description of human chromosome and chromosome abnormalities. Abbreviations include dup for duplications of parts of a chromosome. [36] For example, dup(17p12) causes Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease type 1A. [37]
Gene duplication does not necessarily constitute a lasting change in a species' genome. In fact, such changes often don't last past the initial host organism. From the perspective of molecular genetics, gene amplification is one of many ways in which a gene can be overexpressed. Genetic amplification can occur artificially, as with the use of the polymerase chain reaction technique to amplify short strands of DNA in vitro using enzymes, or it can occur naturally, as described above. If it's a natural duplication, it can still take place in a somatic cell, rather than a germline cell (which would be necessary for a lasting evolutionary change).
Duplications of oncogenes are a common cause of many types of cancer. In such cases the genetic duplication occurs in a somatic cell and affects only the genome of the cancer cells themselves, not the entire organism, much less any subsequent offspring. Recent comprehensive patient-level classification and quantification of driver events in TCGA cohorts revealed that there are on average 12 driver events per tumor, of which 1.5 are amplifications of oncogenes. [38]
Cancer type | Associated gene amplifications | Prevalence of amplification in cancer type (percent) |
---|---|---|
Breast cancer | MYC | 20% [39] |
ERBB2 (HER2) | 20% [39] | |
CCND1 (Cyclin D1) | 15–20% [39] | |
FGFR1 | 12% [39] | |
FGFR2 | 12% [39] | |
Cervical cancer | MYC | 25–50% [39] |
ERBB2 | 20% [39] | |
Colorectal cancer | HRAS | 30% [39] |
KRAS | 20% [39] | |
MYB | 15–20% [39] | |
Esophageal cancer | MYC | 40% [39] |
CCND1 | 25% [39] | |
MDM2 | 13% [39] | |
Gastric cancer | CCNE (Cyclin E) | 15% [39] |
KRAS | 10% [39] | |
MET | 10% [39] | |
Glioblastoma | ERBB1 (EGFR) | 33–50% [39] |
CDK4 | 15% [39] | |
Head and neck cancer | CCND1 | 50% [39] |
ERBB1 | 10% [39] | |
MYC | 7–10% [39] | |
Hepatocellular cancer | CCND1 | 13% [39] |
Neuroblastoma | MYCN | 20–25% [39] |
Ovarian cancer | MYC | 20–30% [39] |
ERBB2 | 15–30% [39] | |
AKT2 | 12% [39] | |
Sarcoma | MDM2 | 10–30% [39] |
CDK4 | 10% [39] | |
Small cell lung cancer | MYC | 15–20% [39] |
Whole-genome duplications are also frequent in cancers, detected in 30% to 36% of tumors from the most common cancer types. [40] [41] Their exact role in carcinogenesis is unclear, but they in some cases lead to loss of chromatin segregation leading to chromatin conformation changes that in turn lead to oncogenic epigenetic and transcriptional modifications. [42]
In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA. The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as regulatory sequences, and often a substantial fraction of junk DNA with no evident function. Almost all eukaryotes have mitochondria and a small mitochondrial genome. Algae and plants also contain chloroplasts with a chloroplast genome.
Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population. This change is due to four different processes: mutation, selection, gene flow and genetic drift. This change happens over a relatively short amount of time compared to the changes termed macroevolution.
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosis, or meiosis or other types of damage to DNA, which then may undergo error-prone repair, cause an error during other forms of repair, or cause an error during replication. Mutations may also result from insertion or deletion of segments of DNA due to mobile genetic elements.
A transposable element is a nucleic acid sequence in DNA that can change its position within a genome, sometimes creating or reversing mutations and altering the cell's genetic identity and genome size. Transposition often results in duplication of the same genetic material. In the human genome, L1 and Alu elements are two examples. Barbara McClintock's discovery of them earned her a Nobel Prize in 1983. Its importance in personalized medicine is becoming increasingly relevant, as well as gaining more attention in data analytics given the difficulty of analysis in very high dimensional spaces.
The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the nuclear genome and the mitochondrial genome. Human genomes include both protein-coding DNA sequences and various types of DNA that does not encode proteins. The latter is a diverse category that includes DNA coding for non-translated RNA, such as that for ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, ribozymes, small nuclear RNAs, and several types of regulatory RNAs. It also includes promoters and their associated gene-regulatory elements, DNA playing structural and replicatory roles, such as scaffolding regions, telomeres, centromeres, and origins of replication, plus large numbers of transposable elements, inserted viral DNA, non-functional pseudogenes and simple, highly repetitive sequences. Introns make up a large percentage of non-coding DNA. Some of this non-coding DNA is non-functional junk DNA, such as pseudogenes, but there is no firm consensus on the total amount of junk DNA.
A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. They have a higher mutation rate than other areas of DNA leading to high genetic diversity. Microsatellites are often referred to as short tandem repeats (STRs) by forensic geneticists and in genetic genealogy, or as simple sequence repeats (SSRs) by plant geneticists.
Molecular evolution is the process of change in the sequence composition of cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins across generations. The field of molecular evolution uses principles of evolutionary biology and population genetics to explain patterns in these changes. Major topics in molecular evolution concern the rates and impacts of single nucleotide changes, neutral evolution vs. natural selection, origins of new genes, the genetic nature of complex traits, the genetic basis of speciation, the evolution of development, and ways that evolutionary forces influence genomic and phenotypic changes.
Pseudogenes are nonfunctional segments of DNA that resemble functional genes. Most arise as superfluous copies of functional genes, either directly by gene duplication or indirectly by reverse transcription of an mRNA transcript. Pseudogenes are usually identified when genome sequence analysis finds gene-like sequences that lack regulatory sequences needed for transcription or translation, or whose coding sequences are obviously defective due to frameshifts or premature stop codons. Pseudogenes are a type of junk DNA.
Molecular genetics is a branch of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the structure and/or function of genes in an organism's genome using genetic screens.
Comparative genomics is a field of biological research in which the genomic features of different organisms are compared. The genomic features may include the DNA sequence, genes, gene order, regulatory sequences, and other genomic structural landmarks. In this branch of genomics, whole or large parts of genomes resulting from genome projects are compared to study basic biological similarities and differences as well as evolutionary relationships between organisms. The major principle of comparative genomics is that common features of two organisms will often be encoded within the DNA that is evolutionarily conserved between them. Therefore, comparative genomic approaches start with making some form of alignment of genome sequences and looking for orthologous sequences in the aligned genomes and checking to what extent those sequences are conserved. Based on these, genome and molecular evolution are inferred and this may in turn be put in the context of, for example, phenotypic evolution or population genetics.
Sequence homology is the biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a speciation event (orthologs), or a duplication event (paralogs), or else a horizontal gene transfer event (xenologs).
Paleopolyploidy is the result of genome duplications which occurred at least several million years ago (MYA). Such an event could either double the genome of a single species (autopolyploidy) or combine those of two species (allopolyploidy). Because of functional redundancy, genes are rapidly silenced or lost from the duplicated genomes. Most paleopolyploids, through evolutionary time, have lost their polyploid status through a process called diploidization, and are currently considered diploids, e.g., baker's yeast, Arabidopsis thaliana, and perhaps humans.
Copy number variation (CNV) is a phenomenon in which sections of the genome are repeated and the number of repeats in the genome varies between individuals. Copy number variation is a type of structural variation: specifically, it is a type of duplication or deletion event that affects a considerable number of base pairs. Approximately two-thirds of the entire human genome may be composed of repeats and 4.8–9.5% of the human genome can be classified as copy number variations. In mammals, copy number variations play an important role in generating necessary variation in the population as well as disease phenotype.
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA, that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protein-coding genes and non-coding genes.
A gene family is a set of homologous genes within one organism. A gene cluster is a group of two or more genes found within an organism's DNA that encode similar polypeptides, or proteins, which collectively share a generalized function and are often located within a few thousand base pairs of each other. The size of gene clusters can vary significantly, from a few genes to several hundred genes. Portions of the DNA sequence of each gene within a gene cluster are found to be identical; however, the resulting protein of each gene is distinctive from the resulting protein of another gene within the cluster. Genes found in a gene cluster may be observed near one another on the same chromosome or on different, but homologous chromosomes. An example of a gene cluster is the Hox gene, which is made up of eight genes and is part of the Homeobox gene family.
NUMT, pronounced "new might", is an acronym for "nuclear mitochondrial DNA" segment or genetic locus coined by evolutionary geneticist, Jose V. Lopez, which describes a transposition of any type of cytoplasmic mitochondrial DNA into the nuclear genome of eukaryotic organisms.
Gene redundancy is the existence of multiple genes in the genome of an organism that perform the same function. Gene redundancy can result from gene duplication. Such duplication events are responsible for many sets of paralogous genes. When an individual gene in such a set is disrupted by mutation or targeted knockout, there can be little effect on phenotype as a result of gene redundancy, whereas the effect is large for the knockout of a gene with only one copy. Gene knockout is a method utilized in some studies aiming to characterize the maintenance and fitness effects functional overlap.
Genome evolution is the process by which a genome changes in structure (sequence) or size over time. The study of genome evolution involves multiple fields such as structural analysis of the genome, the study of genomic parasites, gene and ancient genome duplications, polyploidy, and comparative genomics. Genome evolution is a constantly changing and evolving field due to the steadily growing number of sequenced genomes, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, available to the scientific community and the public at large.
Unequal crossing over is a type of gene duplication or deletion event that deletes a sequence in one strand and replaces it with a duplication from its sister chromatid in mitosis or from its homologous chromosome during meiosis. It is a type of chromosomal crossover between homologous sequences that are not paired precisely. Normally genes are responsible for occurrence of crossing over. It exchanges sequences of different links between chromosomes. Along with gene conversion, it is believed to be the main driver for the generation of gene duplications and is a source of mutation in the genome.
DNA transposons are DNA sequences, sometimes referred to "jumping genes", that can move and integrate to different locations within the genome. They are class II transposable elements (TEs) that move through a DNA intermediate, as opposed to class I TEs, retrotransposons, that move through an RNA intermediate. DNA transposons can move in the DNA of an organism via a single-or double-stranded DNA intermediate. DNA transposons have been found in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. They can make up a significant portion of an organism's genome, particularly in eukaryotes. In prokaryotes, TE's can facilitate the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance or other genes associated with virulence. After replicating and propagating in a host, all transposon copies become inactivated and are lost unless the transposon passes to a genome by starting a new life cycle with horizontal transfer. It is important to note that DNA transposons do not randomly insert themselves into the genome, but rather show preference for specific sites.