Gene Conversion during Primate Evolution

Yoko Satta, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan

Published online: March 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020832

Gene conversion is a nonreciprocal recombination process. This originally represented a distortion of segregation of alleles in gametocytes. In evolutionary studies, however, this often means ‘the transfer of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence information from one locus to another’. In evolutionary processes the gene conversion is frequently observed between tandemly duplicated sequences or between homologous sequences on a same chromosome. Significant roles of gene conversion between functional loci are generally in keeping their sequence and functional similarity in the ‘coevolution’ of interacting molecules. In addition, gene conversion often takes place between a functional gene and pseudogene. This mainly causes diseases, especially in humans.

Keywords: intra/interchromosomal gene conversion; diseases; concerted evolution; functional interaction; gene duplication

Figure 1. The relationship between recombination and gene conversion. Double DNA strands are depicted as double arrows. The orientation of each arrow indicates 5¢ to 3¢. Double-strand break occurred and to repair this break, Holliday junction is produced. For further repairing, the junction moves and produces the heteroduplex. When this heteroduplex is resolved, depending on the point of cutting DNA (a red arrow at resolution A or resolution B), outcome is either recombination or gene conversion.
Figure 2. Sliding window analysis of the number of nucleotide differences (p-distances) between human - and -globin genes. The sliding window size is 100 bp and the sliding interval is 10 bp. Depending on nucleotide differences, the entire gene is divided into four regions. The box and line under the x-axis show the position of exons and introns, respectively.
Figure 3. Gene organization of PKD1 and its pseudogene clusters in humans and chimpanzees. The length of arrows roughly represents the size of the gene. The orientation of arrows indicates an orientation of gene from 5¢ to 3¢. Phylogenies are constructed using the Neighbor-Joining method based on p-distances. A scale bar for each tree is indicated at the bottom of each tree.
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Related Sub-Topics:

Evolutionary Genomics | Molecular Evolution | Human Evolution | Variation by Mutation and Recombination | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
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Article Title: Gene Conversion during Primate Evolution
 
How to Cite close
Satta, Yoko(Mar 2008) Gene Conversion during Primate Evolution. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020832]