September 7,2007
From Shiu Lab
1) Genetic properties influencing the evolvability of gene expression Science
The paper says that the mutability of genes is directly related to the Trans acting factors that regulate their expression and also to the number of cis-acting elements present in their upstream regions. They have tried to find the role of mutations in a background depleted of natural selection and demography
2) Backup without redundancy: Genetic interactions reveal the cost of duplicate gene loss Mol. Sys. Biol
The paper talks about the importance of duplicate genes. Many duplicate gene pairs in yeast seem to have non-overlapping functions, and even those which can buffer mutation in their partner do not have exactly the same function, and hence can compensate only in a limited set of conditions. Analyses of HD-gene interaction maps.
The authors have tried to investigate what happens to neo-polyploids at the proteomic level. They found that there is the stoichiometry in protein complexes is lost in the synth. allotetraploid. They also conclude that there's no "genomic shock" as the functional categories and pathways are maintained as compared to the diploid progenitor.
4) Gene networks involved in drought stress response and tolerance Journal of Expt botany, 2006
A review of the expression analyses done on rice, arabidopsis etc.
5) Mutational and selective effects on copy number variants in the human genome Nature Genetics, June 2007
A review of the role of CNVs in humans. They argue the evol significance considering the neutrality hypothesis, positive and negative selection and so on. They also review the patterns associated with CNVs - their location, whether exons are duplicated and so on...all this in the context of humans and primates.
6) Molecular mechanisms of new gene formation Cell Mol. Life Sci. Dec 2006
Review. The mechanisms - SPlicing, retrotransposition, duplication - and the current data about those (2006)is discussed.
7) The neo-selectionist theory of genome evolution PNAS, May 2007
Probably a benchmark paper. Proposes a new view of genome evolution. Giorgio Bernardi suggests that Darwinian forces could act on neutral mutations through changes in chromatin structure. And that vertebrate evolution has occurred not via point mutations but by segmental changes, which could have their roots in neutral mutations.
