Two patterns of origination - the origin of novel regulatory sequences and novel proteins

30 September 2022

Li Zhao
Laboratory of evolutionary genetics and genomics
Rockefeller University

zoom recording

Abstract

One fundamental question in evolutionary biology is to understand how genetic novelties arise and how they contribute to phenotypic innovation and evolution. Much is known about how duplicated genes, the majority of which re-utilize pre-existing enhancers and promoters, are born and fixed. In contrast, much less is known about the birth process of de novo protein-coding genes, which are genes that originated from ancestrally non-genic sequences. In contrast to duplicated genes, de novo protein-coding gene birth requires both the generation of novel regulatory sequences that can recruit the regulatory machinery and the generation of novel open reading frames (ORFs). Are those sequences evolving gradually, or does selection rapidly shape the regulatory sequences and non-genic ORFs, or does selection act on pre-existing regulatory sequences and non-genic ORFs? I will discuss different modes of origination for regulatory sequences and novel proteins, and provide empirical examples of how we seek to reveal the principles of novel gene birth.

current theory lunch schedule