植物学报 ›› 2006, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (4): 402-408.

• 专题介绍 • 上一篇    下一篇

假基因的组成、分布及其分子进化

黄志华 薛庆中   

  1. (浙江大学农业与生物技术学院 杭州 310029)
  • 收稿日期:2005-02-16 修回日期:2006-02-07 出版日期:2006-07-06 发布日期:2006-07-06
  • 通讯作者: 薛庆中

Composition and Distribution of Pseudogenes and Their Molecular Evolution

Zhihua Huang, Qingzhong Xue   

  1. (College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029)
  • Received:2005-02-16 Revised:2006-02-07 Online:2006-07-06 Published:2006-07-06
  • Contact: Qingzhong Xue

摘要: 假基因(pseudogene)是指基因组中与正常基因序列相似, 但是缺乏功能的DNA 序列。通过序列同源性搜索, 可以收集基因组中假基因的群体特性、染色体分布和同源家族等特性。假基因很好地保留了数百万年前基因组中祖先基因的分子记录, 被视为“基因化石”, 因此假基因在进化和比较基因组学中是重要的资源。应用假基因和基因比较体系, 可以探究生物基因的进化史和基因组稳定性。如: 用Ka/Ks比值确定假基因的自然选择压、物种亲缘关系和进化距离, 分析假基因自身的进化趋势, 探讨DNA 突变的成因等。

Abstract: Pseudogenes are sequences of genomic DNA with such similarity to functional genes that they are regarded as nonfunctional copies or close relatives of genes. Homology search of genomic DNA can reveal pseudogene sequences, and some properties of pseudogenes such as population, distribution, and homology family can be examined. Pseudogenes are important resources in evolutionary and comparative genomics and are considered gene fossils, because they provide molecular records of the ancient genes that existed in the genome millions of years ago. Comparison of genes and pseudogenes offers new insights into the evolutionary history of genes and the stability of the genome as a whole, for example, the determination of the natural selection pressure of pseudogenes with Ka/Ks, the relation and the evolutionary distance between species and tendency of pseudogenes and the origin of DNA mutation.