Functional and evolutionary implications of gene orthology
Open accessAbstract
Orthologues and paralogues are types of homologous genes that are related by speciation or duplication, respectively. Orthologous genes are generally assumed to retain equivalent functions in different organisms and to share other key properties. Several recent comparative genomic studies have focused on testing these expectations. Here we discuss the complexity of the evolution of gene-phenotype relationships and assess the validity of the key implications of orthology and paralogy relationships as general statistical trends and guiding principles.
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Distinguishing orthologs and paralogs is a fundamental problem in evolutionary and molecular biology and a prerequisite for many genomic analyses.
“Distinguishing orthologs and paralogs is a fundamental problem in evolutionary and molecular biology (1) and a prerequisite for many genomic analyses, including reconstructing phylogenetic trees, predicting gene function, investigating molecular and genome evolution, and discovering differences in genes that underlie phenotypes of the sequenced species (2–6).”
From Integrating gene annotation with orthology inference at scale (2023) · cites this paper as [1]
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“cellare homolog in clade 1 and thus an accelerated evolutionary rate could also be invoked to explain this topology (Gabaldón and Koonin, 2013), especially because the alternative inference of 8 duplications and 72 losses seems plausible (Table 2 and Supplementary Material S6).”
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- Authors
- Gabaldón, T., & Koonin, E. V.
- Affiliations
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra (ES)
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gabaldón, Toni
- Koonin, Eugene V.
- Venue
- Nature Reviews Genetics
- Published
- 2013-04-04
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 360-366
- ISSN
- 1471-0056 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-0064
- PMC
- PMC5877793
- OpenAlex
- W2041386815
- Cited by
- 643
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 57 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 72 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 49 · 2017: 37 · 2016: 51 · 2015: 32 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 11
- FWCI
- 4.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Reviews Genetics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
- National Institutes of Health
- U.S. National Library of Medicine (Z01LM000073)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Chromosomal and Genetic Variations
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
- Keywords
- gene orthology, homologous genes, gene function conservation, gene duplication, speciation, genotype-phenotype correlation, comparative genomics, gene function evolution
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Humans, Models, Genetic, Phenotype, Phylogeny, Sequence Analysis, Evolution, Molecular, Genomics, Models, Animal
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