ArticleCurrent biology : CB2024
Parallel gene size and isoform expansion of ancient neuronal genes.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Tandem repeats in human brain evolution and disease susceptibility.Molecules and cells · 2026Review
- Chromatin-associated intronic RNAs from long genes form introsomes that shape nuclear architecture in neuronal cells.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cohesin forms fountains at active enhancers in C. elegans.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Neuron-specific homologous coding genes and non-coding regulatory regions are the most conserved amongst amniotes despite neuron-specific cell size diversity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
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- The ancient dialogue between brain and body.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Organism-Specific Sequence Motifs Link Ribosomal RNAs to Brain Disorders.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Phylogenetic and Structural Analyses of Vesicular Glutamate Transporters.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- Unfolding neural diversity: how dynamic three-dimensional genome architecture regulates brain function and disease.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- Novel Insights into Emx2 and Dmrta2 Cooperation during Cortex Development and Evidence for Dmrta2 Function in the Choroid Plexus.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
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- RNA Polymerase II Activity Control of Gene Expression and Involvement in Disease.Journal of molecular biology · 2025Review
- Global identification of mammalian host and nested gene pairs reveal tissue-specific transcriptional interplay.Genome research · 2024Article
- Functional associations of evolutionarily recent human genes exhibit sensitivity to the 3D genome landscape and disease.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Planarian LDB and SSDP proteins scaffold transcriptional complexes for regeneration and patterning.Developmental biology · 2024Article
- Evolutionary neurogenomics: Lengthy resolutions for complex brains.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- Functional evolution and functional biodiversity: 150 years ofFrontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
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2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
How nervous systems evolved is a central question in biology. A diversity of synaptic proteins is thought to play a central role in the formation of specific synapses leading to nervous system complexity. The largest animal genes, often spanning hundreds of thousands of base pairs, are known to be enriched for expression in neurons at synapses and are frequently mutated or misregulated in neurological disorders and diseases. Although many of these genes have been studied independently in the context of nervous system evolution and disease, general principles underlying their parallel evolution remain unknown. To investigate this, we directly compared orthologous gene sizes across eukaryotes. By comparing relative gene sizes within organisms, we identified a distinct class of large genes with origins predating the diversification of animals and, in many cases, the emergence of neurons as dedicated cell types. We traced this class of ancient large genes through evolution and found orthologs of the large synaptic genes potentially driving the immense complexity of metazoan nervous systems, including in humans and cephalopods. Moreover, we found that while these genes are evolving under strong purifying selection, as demonstrated by low dN/dS ratios, they have simultaneously grown larger and gained the most isoforms in animals. This work provides a new lens through which to view this distinctive class of large and multi-isoform genes and demonstrates how intrinsic genomic properties, such as gene length, can provide flexibility in molecular evolution and allow groups of genes and their host organisms to evolve toward complexity.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.