Institute of Gene Biology Russian Academy of Sciences, 119334 Moscow, Russia.
Faculty of Biology, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119234 Moscow, Russia.
Genes (Basel). 2021 Jun 11;12(6):907. doi: 10.3390/genes12060907.
There are many co-regulated genes in eukaryotic cells. The coordinated activation or repression of such genes occurs at specific stages of differentiation, or under the influence of external stimuli. As a rule, co-regulated genes are dispersed in the genome. However, there are also gene clusters, which contain paralogous genes that encode proteins with similar functions. In this aspect, they differ significantly from bacterial operons containing functionally linked genes that are not paralogs. In this review, we discuss the reasons for the existence of gene clusters in vertebrate cells and propose that clustering is necessary to ensure the possibility of selective activation of one of several similar genes.
真核细胞中有许多共同调控的基因。这些基因的协同激活或抑制发生在分化的特定阶段，或在外部刺激的影响下。通常，共同调控的基因在基因组中是分散的。然而，也有基因簇，其中包含编码具有相似功能的蛋白质的同源基因。在这方面，它们与包含非同源基因的功能相关基因的细菌操纵子有很大的不同。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了脊椎动物细胞中基因簇存在的原因，并提出聚类是确保几个类似基因中一个选择性激活的可能性所必需的。
