Evolution of Human Gene Expression Control

Courtney C Babbitt, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Gregory A Wray, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

Published online: March 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020769

The evolutionary history of Homo sapiens has been influenced by selection acting not only on coding regions of the genome, but also on regulatory sequences which control the timing, location and magnitude of gene expression. As the mutations affecting the timing and level of gene expression may be responsible for many of the traits that distinguish us from our closest relatives, selection on regulatory elements of the genome also may have had a large role in shaping recent human evolutionary change.

Keywords: cis-regulation; functional genomics; human evolution; gene expression; polymorphism

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    Wray GA, Hahn MW, Abouheif E et al. (2003) The evolution of transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes. Molecular Biology and Evolution 20: 1377–1419.

Related Sub-Topics:

Molecular Evolution | Human Evolution | Transcriptional Regulation | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
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Article Title: Evolution of Human Gene Expression Control
 
How to Cite close
Babbitt, Courtney C, and Wray, Gregory A(Mar 2008) Evolution of Human Gene Expression Control. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020769]