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A Survey of Functional Retroposed Genes: H. sapiens, M. musculus, D. melanogaster, and C. elegans

Retrogenes are functional genes that are created through retroposition, whereby mature mRNA is reverse-transcribed and re-integrated into the genome. In this study, the following objectives were accomplished: (i) intrachromosomal- and interchromosomal-retroposed genes were located in H. sapiens, (ii) interchromosomal-retroposed genes were located in M. musculus, D. melanogaster, and C. elegans. To date, this is the first assay for intrachromosomal-retroposed genes in H. sapiens and interchromosomal-retroposed genes in C. elegans. Biases discovered include excess interchromosomal generation of retrogenes by chromosome X in H. sapiens, M. musculus, and D. melanogaster. Selection pressure created by the inactivation of the X chromosome during male meiosis appears to be at least partially responsible for this phenomenon. In addition, excess interchromosomal recruitment of retrogenes by chromosome X was observed in H. sapiens. The driving force appears to be an interplay between selection for female-beneficial genes and selection for male-beneficial genes. No other chromosome biases were discovered.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/24603
Date27 July 2010
CreatorsMahmood, Sanaa
ContributorsZhang, Zhaolei
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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