Epigenetics: Dplicate gene controls (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 09, 2014, 15:52 (3675 days ago) @ David Turell

Differential methylation is found to conrol duplicate gene actions:-http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/02/1321420111-"Duplicate genes are essential and ongoing sources of genetic material that evolution can act on, yet new duplicates are under constant risk of being inactivated by mutations and subsequently lost. We show that a common heritable epigenetic modifier, DNA methylation, plays an important role in duplicate gene evolution. DNA methylation clearly distinguishes young and old duplicates, and the differences in DNA methylation of duplicate genes are associated with functional differences in expression. Remarkably, for a majority of duplicate gene pairs, a specific duplicate partner is consistently hypo- or hypermethylated across highly divergent tissues. Our results indicate that epigenetic modifications are intimately involved in the regulation and maintenance of duplicate genes."