syntheny or synteny

[csc]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Bernie Cohen wrote:

-The term "Synteny" was invented by my late colleague J. H. Renwick. It was
-intended to refer to genes in the same DNA or chromosome strand, hence the
-"-teny" root, its inspiration being the fact that there existed no word to
-express the relationship between genes that are in the same strand but do
-not show genetic linkage (Renwick's special interest). It was not intended
-to refer to gene order as such.

Hi Bernie,

thanks for your answer. I am looking in medline for renwick, but perhaps
you can point out a review as well. What was the reason that your
colleague wanted to describe genes on the same strand, and is this mostly
a term for micro organisms or can it be extended to eukaryotes as well.
Is there a better term to describe gene order ? Genes such as homeobox
genes are clustered, but I could not find a good review of what the
evolutionary/functional impacts are yet. Why are genes clustered, except
that the cluster hasn't been broken up by chance and evolution ?

thanks in advance,

clemens suter-crazzolara 


--- 
-Bernie Cohen
-Division of Molecular Genetics
-University of Glasgow
-e-mail: b.l.cohen at bio.gla.ac.uk
-
-

Kind regards,                                Clemens Suter-Crazzolara, PhD
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