title: Overlapping genes in vertebrate genomes.
abstract: Overlapping genes in mammalian genomes are unexpected phenomena even though hundreds of pairs of protein coding overlapping genes have been reported so far. Overlapping genes can be divided into different categories based on direction of transcription as well as on sequence segments being shared between overlapping coding regions. The biologic functions of natural antisense transcripts, their involvement in physiological processes and gene regulation in living organisms are not fully understood. Number of documented examples indicates that they may exert control at various levels of gene expression, such as transcription, mRNA processing, splicing, stability, transport, and translation. Similarly, evolutionary origin of such genes is not known, existing hypotheses can explain only selected cases of mammalian gene overlaps which could originate as result of rearrangements, overprinting and/or adoption of signals in the neighboring gene locus.
authors.affiliation: The Huck Institute of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, 502 Wartik Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA. izabelam@psu.edu
authors.forename: Izabela
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Makalowska
authors.forename: Chiao-Feng
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Makalowski
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004194:Disease / Q000209:etiology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005807:Genes, Overlapping; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals; D016372:RNA, Antisense / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D016372:RNA, Antisense