Young genes are highly disordered as predicted by the preadaptation hypothesis 
of de novo gene birth

Wilson, Benjamin A.; Foy, Scott G.; Neme, Rafik; Masel, Joanna

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Young genes are highly disordered as predicted by the preadaptation hypothesis of de novo gene birth

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons73199

Neme, Rafik
Department Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0146
(Publisher version)

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Wilson, B. A., Foy, S. G., Neme, R., & Masel, J. (2017). Young genes are highly disordered as predicted by the preadaptation hypothesis of de novo gene birth. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1: 0146. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0146.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-002E-8FD3-8

Abstract

The phenomenon of de novo gene birth from junk DNA is surprising, because random polypeptides are expected to be toxic. There are two conflicting views about how de novo gene birth is nevertheless possible: the continuum hypothesis invokes a gradual gene birth process, while the preadaptation hypothesis predicts that young genes will show extreme levels of gene-like traits. We show that intrinsic structural disorder conforms to the predictions of the preadaptation hypothesis and falsifies the continuum hypothesis, with all genes having higher levels than translated junk DNA, but young genes having the highest level of all. Results are robust to homology detection bias, to the non-independence of multiple members of the same gene family, and to the false positive annotation of protein-coding genes.