title: Genome of the marsupial Monodelphis domestica reveals innovation in non-coding sequences.
abstract: We report a high-quality draft of the genome sequence of the grey, short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica). As the first metatherian ('marsupial') species to be sequenced, the opossum provides a unique perspective on the organization and evolution of mammalian genomes. Distinctive features of the opossum chromosomes provide support for recent theories about genome evolution and function, including a strong influence of biased gene conversion on nucleotide sequence composition, and a relationship between chromosomal characteristics and X chromosome inactivation. Comparison of opossum and eutherian genomes also reveals a sharp difference in evolutionary innovation between protein-coding and non-coding functional elements. True innovation in protein-coding genes seems to be relatively rare, with lineage-specific differences being largely due to diversification and rapid turnover in gene families involved in environmental interactions. In contrast, about 20% of eutherian conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) are recent inventions that postdate the divergence of Eutheria and Metatheria. A substantial proportion of these eutherian-specific CNEs arose from sequence inserted by transposable elements, pointing to transposons as a major creative force in the evolution of mammalian gene regulation.
authors.affiliation: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 7 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. kersli@broad.mit.edu
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authors.lastname: Zody
authors.forename: Jennifer A Marshall
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mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001482:Base Composition; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D016678:Genome / Q000235:genetics*; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D009893:Opossums / Q000235:genetics*; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D026801:Synteny / Q000235:genetics; D049951:X Chromosome Inactivation / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements