title: Gene families: the taxonomy of protein paralogs and chimeras.
abstract: Ancient duplications and rearrangements of protein-coding segments have resulted in complex gene family relationships. Duplications can be tandem or dispersed and can involve entire coding regions or modules that correspond to folded protein domains. As a result, gene products may acquire new specificities, altered recognition properties, or modified functions. Extreme proliferation of some families within an organism, perhaps at the expense of other families, may correspond to functional innovations during evolution. The underlying processes are still at work, and the large fraction of human and other genomes consisting of transposable elements may be a manifestation of the evolutionary benefits of genomic flexibility.
authors.affiliation: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Henikoff
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Greene
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pietrokovski
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bork
authors.forename: T K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Attwood
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hood
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D019992:Databases as Topic; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D005810:Multigene Family; D010802:Phylogeny; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins