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Strong purifying selection against gene conversions in the trypsin genes of primates

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Abstract

The trypsin gene families of primate species are composed of members who share a remarkable level of sequence similarity. Here, we investigated the gene conversions occurring within the trypsin gene family in five primate species. A total of 36 conversion events, with an average length (±standard deviation) of 1,526 ± 1,124 nucleotides, were detected using two methods. Such extensive gene conversions are likely both the cause and the consequence of the high sequence similarity between primate trypsin genes. In the trypsins encoded by these genes, both the overall amino acid sequences and critical amino acid residues are conserved. Therefore, the numerous long gene conversions we detected between trypsin genes did not alter any of their functionally important amino acid sites. This suggest that, in the trypsin genes of the five primate species studied here, strong purifying selection against gene conversions is occurring in regions containing functionally important residues.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thorough, useful and constructive comments. This work was supported by a Discovery Grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada to G. D.

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  1. Département de biologie et Centre de recherche avancée en génomique environnementale, Université d’Ottawa, 30 Marie Curie, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada

    Nicholas Petronella & Guy Drouin

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  1. Nicholas Petronella
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  2. Guy Drouin
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Correspondence to Guy Drouin.

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Petronella, N., Drouin, G. Strong purifying selection against gene conversions in the trypsin genes of primates. Hum Genet 131, 1739–1749 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00439-012-1196-9

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