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Molecular biology

Complicity of gene and pseudogene

Nature volume 423, pages 26–28 (2003)Cite this article

'Pseudogenes' are produced from functional genes during evolution, and are thought to be simply molecular fossils. The unexpected discovery of a biological function for one pseudogene challenges that popular belief.

Pseudogenes are defective copies of functional genes that have accumulated to an impressive number during mammalian evolution1. Dysfunctional in the sense that they cannot be used as a template for producing a protein, pseudogenes are in fact nearly as abundant as functional genes2,3. Why have mammals allowed their accumulation on so large a scale? One proposed answer is that, although pseudogenes are often cast as evolutionary relics and a nuisance to genomic analysis, the processes by which they arise are needed to create whole gene families4, such as those involved in immunity and smell. But are pseudogenes themselves merely by-products of this process? Or do the apparent evolutionary pressures to retain them hint at some hidden biological function? For one particular pseudogene, the latter seems to be true: elsewhere in this issue (page 91), Hirotsune and colleagues5 report the unprecedented finding that the Makorin 1-p1 pseudogene performs a specific biological task.

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Figure 1: Gene regulation by a pseudogene.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Molecular Biology, and the Department of Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02114, Massachusetts, USA

    Jeannie T. Lee

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  1. Jeannie T. Lee
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Correspondence to Jeannie T. Lee.

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Lee, J. Complicity of gene and pseudogene. Nature 423, 26–28 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423026a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/423026a

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