BIOL 200 Lecture Notes - Noncoding Dna, Selfish Dna, Dna Replication
6 Apr 2012
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Document Summary
Protein coding genes can be solitary, or singly copy, genes or duplicate or multiple gene copies belonging to one gene family. They are found unique gene species which are only once in the genome. The rest occur as multiple copies within the genome which form related sets called gene families: these gene copies can differ slightly because of evolution. Gene duplication is an important process in evolution. New gene copies can either evolve a new function (functional exons) of degenerate over time (pseudogenes): These changes, either good or bad, are caused by mutation to the genome. Pseudogenes were once coding regions of the gene but have lost their function, and therefore are treated like introns during transcription. A gene family contains gene clusters which originate from one gene: a gene family does not, however, have to be formed in clusters. The following table shows the major classes of eukaryotic dna in the human genome.
