Molecular Evolution


Research topics:
  • ENCODE
  • The rate of gene evoltion as a factor of their age
  • References

    • ENCODE is The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Consortium, an international collaboration of research groups funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). The goal of ENCODE was to build a comprehensive parts list of functional elements in the human genome, including elements that act at the protein and RNA levels, and regulatory elements that control cells and circumstances in which a gene is active This Is one of the biggest studies of genetic variation in human and non-human cells. In 2013, a plethora of over 30 studies spilled from ENCODE. ENCODE's main paper claimed that most of the genome is functional. In Graur et al. (2013), we criticized ENCODE for messaging the data to produce incorrect results.

    My lab has participated in the effort to study the results, analyse the data, and eventually criticise the project.

    This work was widely covered by the media (see Press).

    The paper ranked #73 most interesting paper in 2013.


    The rate of gene evoltion as a factor of their age is one of the most important questions in molecular evolution. It has been claimed that older genes tend to evolve more slowly than newer ones (Alba and Castresana 2005).

    By simulation of genes of equal age, Elhaik et al. (2006) we showed that the inverse correlation between age and rate is an artifact caused by our inability to detect homology when evolutionary distances are large. Since evolutionary distance increases with time of divergence and rate of evolution, homologs of fast-evolving genes are frequently undetected in distantly related taxa and are, hence, misclassified as "new." This misclassification causes the mean genetic distance of "new" genes to be overestimated and the mean genetic distance of "old" genes to be underestimated (see below).




    References
    Graur, D., Y. Zheng, N. Price, R. B. Azevedo, R. A. Zufall, and E. Elhaik. 2013. On the Immortality of Television Sets: "Function" in the Human Genome According to the Evolution-Free Gospel of ENCODE. Genome Biol Evol. 5:578-590.
    Elhaik, E., N. Sabath, and D. Graur. 2006. The "inverse relationship between evolutionary rate and age of mammalian genes" is an artifact of increased genetic distance with rate of evolution and time of divergence. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 23:1-3.