Graduation Semester and Year

2009

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Biology

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Esther Betran

Abstract

Gene duplications are a valuable source of genetic information that can evolve under positive selection creating a new gene function without affecting the original function.A gene duplication mechanism is retroposition. Retroposed copies of genes (retrogenes) are created by reverse transcription of a mRNA into the host organism's genome producing a new sequence that has the same protein coding capacity as the parental gene but lacks introns and regulatory regions. Ran and Dntf-2 are genes involved in nuclear transport that have given rise to retrogenes three times in the Drosophila genus.Recently, genes involved in nuclear transport such as Ran and Dntf-2 were implicated in playing a major role in a chromosomal segregation distortion system in D. melanogaster. This thesis provides evidence of positive selection acting on the retrogenes and discusses the potential role of retroposed nuclear transport genes in segregation distortion.

Disciplines

Biology | Life Sciences

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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