1. Plus Ça Change: Gene Enhancers Upset Evolutionary Assumption.
- Author
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Ludwig, M. A., Palsson, A., Alekseeva, E., Bergman, C. M., and Nathan, J.
- Subjects
DROSOPHILA ,PROTEINS ,GENES ,FRUIT flies ,HEREDITY ,BIOMOLECULES - Abstract
The article presents information on gene enhancers. Researcher Michael Ludwig and colleagues studied the enhancer region of a key developmental gene in fruitflies of the genus Drosophila. The enhancer is functionally similar enough in two species that diverged 60 million years ago that switching them produces normal development, but different enough in two species separated by only 10 million years that exchanging them between the two flies aborts development. The article concludes that the utility of structural similarities in understanding evolutionary relationships is likely to be less for gene regulatory regions than for structural genes or the proteins they encode.
- Published
- 2005
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