Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and The Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e25290. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0025290. Epub 2011 Sep 22.
Metabolic gene clusters--functionally related and physically clustered genes--are a common feature of some eukaryotic genomes. Two hypotheses have been advanced to explain the origin and maintenance of metabolic gene clusters: coordinated gene expression and genetic linkage. Here we test the hypothesis that selection for coordinated gene expression underlies the clustering of GAL genes in the yeast genome. We find that, although clustering coordinates the expression of GAL1 and GAL10, disrupting the GAL cluster does not impair fitness, suggesting that other mechanisms, such as genetic linkage, drive the origin and maintenance metabolic gene clusters.
代谢基因簇——功能相关且物理聚集的基因——是一些真核生物基因组的共同特征。有两个假说被提出来解释代谢基因簇的起源和维持：协调基因表达和遗传连锁。在这里，我们检验了这样一个假说，即协调基因表达的选择是酵母基因组中 GAL 基因聚类的基础。我们发现，尽管聚类协调了 GAL1 和 GAL10 的表达，但破坏 GAL 簇并不会损害适应性，这表明其他机制，如遗传连锁，驱动了代谢基因簇的起源和维持。
