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Letter

Nature Genetics 38, 1216–1220 (1 October 2006) | doi:10.1038/ng1888

Mammalian ultraconserved elements are strongly depleted among segmental duplications and copy number variants

Adnan Derti , Frederick P Roth , George M Church & C-ting Wu

An earlier search in the human, mouse and rat genomes for sequences that are 100% conserved in orthologous segments and |[ge]|200 bp in length identified 481 distinct sequences. These human-mouse-rat sequences, which represent ultraconserved elements (UCEs), are believed to be important for functions involving DNA binding, RNA processing and the regulation of transcription and development.