Category Archives: Papers
New genes and functional innovation in mammals
Many human genes have counterparts in distant species such as plants or bacteria. This is because they share a common origin, they were invented a long time ago in a primitive cell. However, there are some genes that do not … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, gene duplication, mammal, Papers
Gene regulation in a hibernating primate
We have published the first study on the molecular processes underlying primate hibernation. The study is the result of a collaboration between researchers at IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, Barcelona) and at Duke University and Duke Lemur Center … Continue reading
Filed under differential gene expression, hibernation, Papers, RNA-Seq
“Origins of de novo genes in human and chimpanzee” published in Plos Genetics
Novel genes are continuously emerging during evolution, but what drives this process? We have published a study in PLOS Genetics in which we find that the fortuitous appearance of certain combinations of elements in the genome can lead to the … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, lncRNA, Papers, science
On homology searches by protein Blast and the characterization of the age of genes (revisited)
This month a paper that investigates the power of sequence similarity searches by BLAST to classify genes into different age classes (phylostratigraphy), Phylostratigraphic bias creates spurious patterns of genome evolution (Moyers and Zhang, Uni Michigan) states that the method substantially … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, Papers
“Long non-coding RNAs as a source of new peptides” published in eLife
Abstract Deep transcriptome sequencing has revealed the existence of many transcripts that lack long or conserved open reading frames (ORFs) and which have been termed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). The vast majority of lncRNAs are lineage-specific and do not yet … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, lncRNA, Papers
Interview to Magda Gayà-Vidal about her work on primate comparative genomics
On August 29 Magda Gayà-Vidal was interviewed at El Punt Avui TV to talk about the results obtained in her master thesis carried out in the Evolutionary Genomics group. She explained the main findings in the paper, including the identification … Continue reading
Using human molecular data to dig into the distant past
A recent study by Magdalena Gayà-Vidal and Mar Albà, at the Biomedical Informatics Research Program (GRIB, IMIM-UPF), has investigated how we can use human genetic data to learn about mutations that might have conferred a selective advantage to humans in … Continue reading
Filed under Papers
Comparative genomics of mammalian hibernators using gene networks
We have recently published a paper at Integrative and Comparative Biology, embedded in the special issue Hibernation Dynamics in Mammals, where we query the latest available genomic data to explore a particularly interesting mammalian-specific adaptation: hibernation. Abstract: In recent years, … Continue reading
Filed under Papers
Long non-coding RNAs as a source of new peptides
This post is by M.Mar Albà on her preprint (with co-authors) available from arRxiv Long non-coding RNAs as a source of new peptides. Several recent studies based on deep sequencing of ribosome protected fragments have reported that many long non-coding … Continue reading
Filed under Papers
Our latest paper on gene duplication and molecular adaptation has just been published in MBE
Accelerated evolution after gene duplication: a time-dependent process affecting just one copy link to paper In rodent gene duplicates evolutionary rate accelerates after gene duplication (A,B) but returns to the initial values after speciation of mouse and rat (A). These … Continue reading
Filed under Papers
