Category Archives: de novo gene evolution
ERC Advanced Grant NovoGenePop
Our ERC Advanced Grant NovoGenePop has just started! This means we can already recruits scientists and start to gather data. The project will investigate how new genes arise in closely related species and populations. This will involve the development of … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, ribosome profiling, RNA-Seq, transcriptomics, yeast
Large scale annotation of small proteins by ribosome profiling
We participate in a a new world-wide initiative for the large-scale annotation of small ORF translation events detected by ribosome profiling in the human genome. The initiative, led by researchers at Ensembl, Max Delbrück Center and Broad Institute, among others, … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, lncRNA, micropeptide, ribosome profiling
Our research on de novo genes featured in Nature News
Research on de novo genes has been the subject of a News Feature in Nature, written by Adam Levy. The article presents the case of the arctic cod; comparison of genomic sequences from closely related fish species has shown that … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, science, transcriptomics
Thousands of small ORFs are translated, what are they doing?
The high throughput sequencing of ribosome-protected RNA fragments, or ribosome profiling (Ribo-Seq), has uncovered the translation of thousands of novel small ORFs (< 100 amino acids) that were not annotated. These ORFs had remained hidden from annotation pipelines because of … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, proteomics, ribosome profiling, science
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
Our group portrayed at El.lipse
Nov 2016 Tweet
When we fail to detect homologues in other species, is it because they are too divergent or because they do not exist?
The increasing number of genomes available has made it possible to compare the genes and determine in which branch of the phylogenetic tree they are likely to have originated. This has led to the identification of many genes that are … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, science, society
“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
Bioinformatics for all
Several volunteers from GRIB explained what bionformatics is to non-experts during the 2015 PRBB open day on Oct 18 2015. Will Blevins and José Luis Villanueva from the Evolutionary Genomics group tried to convey the concept of “orphan genes” using … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, education, science, society
Quanta Magazine article on de novo genes
De novo genes are genes that do not arise from gene duplication but from previously non-genic regions in the genome. These genes started to be detected about 10 years ago and have gained increased recognition as an important component of … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution
