USDA/ARS, Plant Sciences Institute, Molecular Plant Pathology Laboratory, Beltsville MD 20705, USA.
Gene. 2012 Jan 10;491(2):284-8. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2011.09.023. Epub 2011 Oct 8.
In the eukaryotic genome, genes with similar functions tend to co-localize in close proximity. Such gene clusters together with non-clustered genes constitute a chromatin domain which is a higher order regulatory unit. On a lower level co-expressed genes are regulated by differential activity of transcription factors (TF). We compared genome-wide distributions of TF in gene clusters in the genomes of Drosophila melanogaster and Arabidopsis thaliana. This revealed a significant excess of TF genes in gene clusters of the Arabidopsis genome, whereas in the genome of Drosophila distribution of TF in gene clusters did not differ from stochastic. We speculate that these alternatives could lead to different pathways of regulation of clustered genes in two species and to evolutionary-progressive changes in architecture of regulatory networks, governing the activity of clustered genes in the animal kingdom.
在真核生物基因组中，具有相似功能的基因往往倾向于在紧密相邻的位置共定位。这些基因簇与非聚类基因一起构成了染色质域，它是一个更高阶的调控单元。在较低的水平上，共表达的基因受到转录因子 (TF) 活性差异的调节。我们比较了果蝇和拟南芥基因组中基因簇中 TF 的全基因组分布。结果表明，拟南芥基因组中基因簇的 TF 基因显著过剩，而在果蝇基因组中，基因簇中 TF 的分布与随机分布没有区别。我们推测，这两种选择可能导致两个物种中聚类基因调控的不同途径，并导致调控网络的结构发生进化性的渐进变化，从而控制动物王国中聚类基因的活性。
