Gene Clustering in Eukaryotes

Jeffrey G Lawrence, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Thomas Blumenthal, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Published online: July 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0006117.pub2

Genes are not always organized at random within eukaryotic chromosomes. Multiple mechanisms can lead to the proximity of genes whose products have related functions.

Keywords: gene clustering; gene duplication; operons; polycistronic messages; trans-splicing

Figure 1. Examples of gene clustering in eukaryotes. (a) Organization of the - and -globin gene clusters on human chromosomes 16 and 11. Boxes represent gene locations. (b) Organization of the Drosophila gene sina within the intron of Rh4; boxes represent exons, and introns are depicted as angled segments between exons. (c) Organization of the cha-1 and unc-17 loci in Caenorhabditis elegans. Here, the first exon (SL1) is shared between the two transcripts; exon map after Alfonso et al. (1994). (d) Organization of the LASS1 and GDF1 loci in humans; transcript map after Lee (1991). (e) Organization of CPA1 and its uORF controller in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (f) A generalized model for trans-splicing in nematodes. The leader exon SL1, containing a CAP (5¢ mRNA cap), is trans-spliced onto the 5¢ end of a polycistronic message, whereas the CAP-containing SL2 leader is trans-spliced into internal sites to generate multiple, mature mRNAs.
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    Batada NN and Hurst LD (2007) Evolution of chromosome organization driven by selection for reduced gene expression noise. Nature Genetics 39: 945–949.
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 Web Links
    ePath Growth differentiation factor 1 (GDF1); LocusID: 2657. LocusLink: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/LocusLink/LocRpt.cgi?l=2657.
    ePath LAG1 longevity assurance homolog 1 (LASS1); LocusID: 10715. LocusLink: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/LocusLink/LocRpt.cgi?l=10715.
    ePath Growth differentiation factor 1 (GDF1); MIM number: 602880. OMIM: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Omim/dispmim?602880.
    ePath LAG1 longevity assurance homolog 1 (LASS1); MIM number: 606919. OMIM: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Omim/dispmim?606919.

Related Sub-Topics:

Evolutionary Genomics | Molecular Evolution | Protein Evolution | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
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Article Title: Gene Clustering in Eukaryotes
 
How to Cite close
Lawrence, Jeffrey G, and Blumenthal, Thomas(Jul 2008) Gene Clustering in Eukaryotes. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0006117.pub2]