A < i > de novo < /i > evolved gene in the house mouse regulates female pregnancy cycles

Thede novoemergence of new genes has been well documented through genomic analyses. However, a functional analysis, especially of very young protein-coding genes, is still largely lacking. Here, we identify a set of house mouse-specific protein-coding genes and assess their translation by ribosome profiling and mass spectrometry data. We functionally analyze one of them,Gm13030, which is specifically expressed in females in the oviduct. The interruption of the reading frame affects the transcriptional network in the oviducts at a specific stage of the estrous cycle. This includes the upregulation ofDcpp genes, which are known to stimulate the growth of preimplantation embryos. As a consequence, knockout females have their second litters after shorter times and have a higher infanticide rate. Given thatGm13030 shows no signs of positive selection, our findings support the hypothesis that ade novo evolved gene can directly adopt a function without much sequence adaptation.
Source: eLife - Category: Biomedical Science Tags: Evolutionary Biology Genetics and Genomics Source Type: research