Searching the Resource Information Network

Our searching services are busy right now. Please try again later

  • Register
X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

X

Leaving Community

Are you sure you want to leave this community? Leaving the community will revoke any permissions you have been granted in this community.

No
Yes

Chromosomal rearrangements as a source of new gene formation in Drosophila yakuba.

Nicholas B Stewart | Rebekah L Rogers
PLoS genetics | 2019

The origins of new genes are among the most fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. Our understanding of the ways that new genetic material appears and how that genetic material shapes population variation remains incomplete. De novo genes and duplicate genes are a key source of new genetic material on which selection acts. To better understand the origins of these new gene sequences, we explored the ways that structural variation might alter expression patterns and form novel transcripts. We provide evidence that chromosomal rearrangements are a source of novel genetic variation that facilitates the formation of de novo exons in Drosophila. We identify 51 cases of de novo exon formation created by chromosomal rearrangements in 14 strains of D. yakuba. These new genes inherit transcription start signals and open reading frames when the 5' end of existing genes are combined with previously untranscribed regions. Such new genes would appear with novel peptide sequences, without the necessity for secondary transitions from non-coding RNA to protein. This mechanism of new peptide formations contrasts with canonical theory of de novo gene progression requiring non-coding intermediaries that must acquire new mutations prior to loss via pseudogenization. Hence, these mutations offer a means to de novo gene creation and protein sequence formation in a single mutational step, answering a long standing open question concerning new gene formation. We further identify gene expression changes to 134 existing genes, indicating that these mutations can alter gene regulation. Population variability for chromosomal rearrangements is considerable, with 2368 rearrangements observed across 14 inbred lines. More rearrangements were identified on the X chromosome than any of the autosomes, suggesting the X is more susceptible to chromosome alterations. Together, these results suggest that chromosomal rearrangements are a source of variation in populations that is likely to be important to explain genetic and therefore phenotypic diversity.

Pubmed ID: 31545792

Research resources used in this publication

None found

Antibodies used in this publication

None found

Associated grants

None

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


BLASTN (tool)

RRID:SCR_001598

Web application to search nucleotide databases using a nucleotide query. Algorithms: blastn, megablast, discontiguous megablast.

View all literature mentions

Cuffdiff (tool)

RRID:SCR_001647

Software that estimates expression at transcript-level resolution and controls for variability evident across replicate libraries.

View all literature mentions

DAVID (tool)

RRID:SCR_001881

Bioinformatics resource system including web server and web service for functional annotation and enrichment analyses of gene lists. Consists of comprehensive knowledgebase and set of functional analysis tools. Includes gene centered database integrating heterogeneous gene annotation resources to facilitate high throughput gene functional analysis.

View all literature mentions

SAMTOOLS (tool)

RRID:SCR_002105

Original SAMTOOLS package has been split into three separate repositories including Samtools, BCFtools and HTSlib. Samtools for manipulating next generation sequencing data used for reading, writing, editing, indexing,viewing nucleotide alignments in SAM,BAM,CRAM format. BCFtools used for reading, writing BCF2,VCF, gVCF files and calling, filtering, summarising SNP and short indel sequence variants. HTSlib used for reading, writing high throughput sequencing data.

View all literature mentions

FlyBase (tool)

RRID:SCR_006549

Database of Drosophila genetic and genomic information with information about stock collections and fly genetic tools. Gene Ontology (GO) terms are used to describe three attributes of wild-type gene products: their molecular function, the biological processes in which they play a role, and their subcellular location. Additionally, FlyBase accepts data submissions. FlyBase can be searched for genes, alleles, aberrations and other genetic objects, phenotypes, sequences, stocks, images and movies, controlled terms, and Drosophila researchers using the tools available from the "Tools" drop-down menu in the Navigation bar.

View all literature mentions

TopHat-Fusion (tool)

RRID:SCR_011899

An algorithm for Discovery of Novel Fusion Transcripts with the ability to align reads across fusion points, which results from the breakage and re-joining of two different chromosomes, or from rearrangements within a chromosome.

View all literature mentions

TopHat (tool)

RRID:SCR_013035

Software tool for fast and high throughput alignment of shotgun cDNA sequencing reads generated by transcriptomics technologies. Fast splice junction mapper for RNA-Seq reads. Aligns RNA-Seq reads to mammalian-sized genomes using ultra high-throughput short read aligner Bowtie, and then analyzes mapping results to identify splice junctions between exons.TopHat2 is accurate alignment of transcriptomes in presence of insertions, deletions and gene fusions.

View all literature mentions

Trinity (tool)

RRID:SCR_013048

Software for the efficient and robust de novo reconstruction of transcriptomes from RNA-seq data.

View all literature mentions