Title: "Creation, extinction, and evolution of mammalian gene families"
Speaker: Matthew Hahn, Department of Biological Sciences, Indiana University
Place: Mechanical Engineering (ME) 161; Tuesday, 4:30pm

Abstract

Gene families are groups of genes that share sequence and functional homology. Due to differential gene gain and loss, the size of individual gene families can be substantially different even among closely related species.? Here we present an analysis of the gene families contained within the whole genomes of human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat, and dog.? In total we find that 5,285 (54.9%) of the 9,624 families present in the mammalian common ancestor have either expanded or contracted in at least one lineage, with 1,923 of these families completely lost from one of the genomes.? Additionally, we estimate that 1,245 of the gene families present in the extant taxa were not present in the mammalian common ancestor, and therefore represent recent creations of gene families.? Along the human lineage we find 485 families (815 genes) that have expanded and 319 (335 genes) that have contracted since the split from chimpanzees, including changes likely driven by adaptive natural selection.? This genomic ?revolving door? of gene gain and loss represents a huge number of genetic differences separating humans from our closest relatives.




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