Evolution of New Genes in Drosophila

这些实验的目的是描述Finnegan的基本生物学，Finnegan是果蝇repleta组中Adh的一个新基因，以找到果蝇中Adh新基因的其他例子。 这些数据将为新功能进化的一般模式和过程提供第一个洞察力，并为新功能进化的进一步实验提供原材料。尽管在进化中具有明显的重要性，但在遗传水平上对进化新奇的起源和阐述知之甚少。 我们对这一关键问题缺乏洞察力至少可归因于三个差距。 首先，我们很少有已知的基因具有新近进化的功能的例子，但正是在这种情况下，我们应该有最好的机会了解新基因的起源和功能分化的早期阶段的机制。 其次，通常很难想象如何推断出驱动分子进化新奇的选择压力，因为许多例子涉及古老的重组（例如，外显子改组）的基本细胞功能基因。 最后，由于没有人共同努力寻找具有最近进化功能的基因，因此无法了解这些事件有多普遍，不了解它们的系统发育分布，不了解它们与生态因素的相关性，也不了解决定特定基因或基因类型的进化路径的一般原则。

The goals of these experiments are to describe the basic biology of Finnegan, a novel gene descended from Adh in the repleta group of Drosophila, to find other examples of new genes descended from Adh in Drosophila. These data will provide the first insight into general patterns and processes in the evolution of new function and provide the raw material for further experiments on evolution of novel function.Despite its obvious importance in evolution, the origin and elaboration of evolutionary novelty at the genetic level is only poorly understood. Our lack of insight into this key problem can be attributed to at least three gaps. First there are few known examples of genes having a recently evolved function, yet it is such cases where we should have the best chance of understanding the mechanisms responsible for the origins and early stages of functional divergence of new genes. Second, it is often difficult to imagine how the selective pressures driving molecular evolutionary novelty, might be inferred since many examples involve ancient reorganization (e.g., exon shuffling) of basic cell function genes. Finally, since there has been no concerted effort to search for genes with recently evolved function there is no way to understand how common such events are, no knowledge of their phylogenetic distribution, no understanding of their correlations with ecological factors, and no understanding of the general principles determining the evolutionary paths open to particular genes or types of genes.