Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2005
College/Unit
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department/Program/Center
Biology
Abstract
Background
Alu elements are Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs) in primate genomes that have proven useful as markers for studying genome evolution, population biology and phylogenetics. Most of these applications, however, have been limited to humans and their nearest relatives, chimpanzees. In an effort to expand our understanding of Alusequence evolution and to increase the applicability of these markers to non-human primate biology, we have analyzed available Alu sequences for loci specific to platyrrhine (New World) primates.
Results
Branching patterns along an Alu sequence phylogeny indicate three major classes of platyrrhine-specific Alu sequences. Sequence comparisons further reveal at least three New World monkey-specific subfamilies; Alu Ta7, Alu Ta10, and Alu Ta15. Two of these subfamilies appear to be derived from a gene conversion event that has produced a recently active fusion of Alu Sc- and Alu Sp-type elements. This is a novel mode of origin for new Alu subfamilies.
Conclusion
The use of Alu elements as genetic markers in studies of genome evolution, phylogenetics, and population biology has been very productive when applied to humans. The characterization of these three new Alu subfamilies not only increases our understanding of Alu sequence evolution in primates, but also opens the door to the application of these genetic markers outside the hominid lineage.
Digital Commons Citation
Ray, David A. and Batzer, Mark A., "Tracking Alu evolution in New World primates" (2005). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 2869.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/2869
Source Citation
Ray, D.A., Batzer, M.A. Tracking Alu evolution in New World primates. BMC Evol Biol 5, 51 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-5-51
Comments
© 2005 Ray and Batzer; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.