Chen Xiao-hua, Shi Hong, Liu Xiao-Lin, Su Bing
Key Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Kunming, China.
Gene. 2006 Mar 29;370:58-63. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2005.11.014. Epub 2006 Jan 27.
The TTL.6 gene is a member of the tubulin-tyrosine ligase (TTL) family involved in apoptosis and preferentially expressed in the testis. We sequenced the coding region and part of the introns of TTL.6 in world wide human populations and five representative nonhuman primate species covering great apes, lesser ape and Old World monkey. The sequence substitution patterns of TTL.6 in primates demonstrated a sharp difference in evolutionary rates among different primate lineages. Our results indicated an accelerated evolution of TTL.6 in the human lineage, which was caused by Darwinian positive selection. Further analysis on sequence variations in human populations demonstrated an excess of derived common alleles, which was likely caused by genetic hitchhiking, an implication of recent positive selection on TTL.6 in human populations.
TTL.6基因是微管蛋白酪氨酸连接酶（TTL）家族的成员，参与细胞凋亡，且在睾丸中优先表达。我们对全球人类群体以及涵盖大猩猩、长臂猿和旧世界猴的五个代表性非人类灵长类物种的TTL.6编码区和部分内含子进行了测序。灵长类动物中TTL.6的序列替代模式表明，不同灵长类谱系的进化速率存在显著差异。我们的结果表明，人类谱系中TTL.6发生了加速进化，这是由达尔文正选择导致的。对人类群体序列变异的进一步分析表明，衍生常见等位基因过多，这可能是由遗传搭便车引起的，暗示了近期人类群体中TTL.6受到正选择。
