Discovery notes

Strong association between pseudogenization mechanisms and gene sequence length

Amit N Khachane and Paul M Harrison

Department of Biology, McGill University, Stewart Biology Building, 1205 Docteur Penfield Ave, Montreal, QC, H3A 1B1, Canada

author email corresponding author email

Biology Direct 2009, 4:38doi:10.1186/1745-6150-4-38

Published:	6 October 2009

Abstract

Pseudogenes arise from the decay of gene copies following either RNA-mediated duplication (processed pseudogenes) or DNA-mediated duplication (nonprocessed pseudogenes). Here, we show that long protein-coding genes tend to produce more nonprocessed pseudogenes than short genes, whereas the opposite is true for processed pseudogenes. Protein-coding genes longer than 3000 bp are 6 times more likely to produce nonprocessed pseudogenes than processed ones.

This article was reviewed by Dr. Dan Graur and Dr. Craig Nelson (nominated by Dr. J Peter Gogarten).