Retrotransposition as a Source of New Promoters.

@article{citeulike:2615522, abstract = {The fact that promoters are essential for the function of all genes presents the basis of the general idea that retrotranspositions give rise to processed pseudogenes. However, recent studies have demonstrated that some retrotransposed genes are transcriptionally active. Because promoters are not thought to be retrotransposed along with exonic sequences, these transcriptionally active genes must have acquired a functional promoter by mechanisms that are yet to be determined. Hence, comparison between a retrotransposed gene and its source gene appears to provide a unique opportunity to investigate the promoter creation for a new gene. Here, we identified 29 gene pairs in the human genome, consisting of a functional retrotransposed gene and its parental gene, and compared their respective promoters. In more than half of these cases, we unexpectedly found that a large part of the core promoter had been transcribed, reverse-transcribed, and then integrated to be operative at the transposed locus. This observation can be ascribed to the recent discovery that transcription start sites tend to be interspersed rather than situated at one specific site. This propensity could confer retrotransposability to promoters per se. Accordingly, the retrotransposability can explain the genesis of some alternative promoters.}, address = {Human Genome Centre, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan.}, author = {Okamura, Kohji and Nakai, Kenta }, citeulike-article-id = {2615522}, doi = {10.1093/molbev/msn071}, issn = {1537-1719}, journal = {Mol Biol Evol}, keywords = {evolution, human, promoter, retrotransposition}, month = {March}, posted-at = {2008-03-31 10:08:56}, priority = {2}, title = {Retrotransposition as a Source of New Promoters.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msn071}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2615522 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2615522 TI - Retrotransposition as a Source of New Promoters. JF - Mol Biol Evol AD - Human Genome Centre, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan. SN - 1537-1719 N2 - The fact that promoters are essential for the function of all genes presents the basis of the general idea that retrotranspositions give rise to processed pseudogenes. However, recent studies have demonstrated that some retrotransposed genes are transcriptionally active. Because promoters are not thought to be retrotransposed along with exonic sequences, these transcriptionally active genes must have acquired a functional promoter by mechanisms that are yet to be determined. Hence, comparison between a retrotransposed gene and its source gene appears to provide a unique opportunity to investigate the promoter creation for a new gene. Here, we identified 29 gene pairs in the human genome, consisting of a functional retrotransposed gene and its parental gene, and compared their respective promoters. In more than half of these cases, we unexpectedly found that a large part of the core promoter had been transcribed, reverse-transcribed, and then integrated to be operative at the transposed locus. This observation can be ascribed to the recent discovery that transcription start sites tend to be interspersed rather than situated at one specific site. This propensity could confer retrotransposability to promoters per se. Accordingly, the retrotransposability can explain the genesis of some alternative promoters. KW - evolution KW - human KW - promoter KW - retrotransposition AU - Okamura, Kohji AU - Nakai, Kenta PY - 2008/03/25/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msn071 ER -