Genome of the marsupial Monodelphis domestica reveals innovation in non-coding sequences. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • We report a high-quality draft of the genome sequence of the grey, short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica). As the first metatherian ('marsupial') species to be sequenced, the opossum provides a unique perspective on the organization and evolution of mammalian genomes. Distinctive features of the opossum chromosomes provide support for recent theories about genome evolution and function, including a strong influence of biased gene conversion on nucleotide sequence composition, and a relationship between chromosomal characteristics and X chromosome inactivation. Comparison of opossum and eutherian genomes also reveals a sharp difference in evolutionary innovation between protein-coding and non-coding functional elements. True innovation in protein-coding genes seems to be relatively rare, with lineage-specific differences being largely due to diversification and rapid turnover in gene families involved in environmental interactions. In contrast, about 20% of eutherian conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) are recent inventions that postdate the divergence of Eutheria and Metatheria. A substantial proportion of these eutherian-specific CNEs arose from sequence inserted by transposable elements, pointing to transposons as a major creative force in the evolution of mammalian gene regulation.

authors

publication date

  • May 10, 2007

Research

keywords

  • Evolution, Molecular
  • Genome
  • Genomics
  • Opossums

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 34248576291

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1038/nature05805

PubMed ID

  • 17495919

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 447

issue

  • 7141