title: The recent evolution of a pseudogene: diversity and divergence of a mitochondria-localized small heat shock protein in Arabidopsis thaliana.
abstract: In this study we examined the evolution of the genes for three organelle-localized small heat shock proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana: the chloroplast-localized (CP) protein HSP21 and two mitochondria-localized (MT) proteins, HSP23.5 and HSP23.6. We found that the CP protein and one of the MT proteins, HSP23.6, are evolving under purifying selection to maintain function. In contrast, the gene for HSP23.5, the other MT protein, is highly variable within A. thaliana, and in some accessions or ecotypes this gene may be a pseudogene. HSP23.5 and HSP23.6 are related via a segmental duplication event, and the presence of orthologs of each gene in other species within the Brassicaceae indicates that the duplication generating HSP23.5 and HSP23.6 may have occurred as much as 20 million years ago. This is considerably longer than the 4 million year half-life of gene duplicates (functional genes as well as pseudogenes) reported by some studies. Our results are consistent with the prediction that after gene duplication one gene duplicate can be maintained for some time under relaxed selection while it accumulates random mutations. By capturing a pseudogene in the making our study provides important information on how pseudogenes are formed.
authors: Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92122, USA. ewaters@sciences.sdsu.edu
authors: Elizabeth R
authors: ER
authors: Waters
authors: Suzan L
authors: SL
authors: Nguyen
authors: Raheleh
authors: R
authors: Eskandar
authors: Jennifer
authors: J
authors: Behan
authors: Zipporah
authors: Z
authors: Sanders-Reed
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002736:Chloroplasts / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020440:Gene Duplication; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D050888:Heat-Shock Proteins, Small / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics*; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011544:Pseudogenes
chemical_list: D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; C400143:HSP21 protein, Arabidopsis; C107091:HSP23.5 protein, Arabidopsis; C529740:HSP23.6 protein, Arabidopsis; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D050888:Heat-Shock Proteins, Small; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins