Keith Robison (robison at mito.harvard.edu) wrote:
>Ram Samudrala (ram at mbisgi.umd.edu) wrote:
>: Paul Linehan (linehan at ceph.cephb.fr) wrote:
>: >They can of course be ancient or recent. They normally arise from
>: >functional genes and not vice-versa (at least to my knowledge).
>: If a functional gene arose from a pseudogene, it would not be
>: classified as a pseudogene.
>It's not clear that this is true -- a pseudogene (or portions
>of it) might be resurrected -- much in the way a wrecked car
>can still provide useful parts. A pseudogene which has undergone
>only a few mutational hits might be resurrected in part by
>combining with another gene.
I was just pointing out what I thought was an issue of definition. It
is not clear to me what Paul means by "vice-versa", but I don't see
the meaning of it. When you have a functional gene, regardless of
where it arose from, it will not be classified as a pseudogene. It
might be true that functional genes can arise from pseudogenes and
pseudogenes can arise from functional genes, but if the former
happens, I don't see the meaning in classifying it a pseudogene.
In your example, Keith, if a pseudogene is indeed resurrected, it
would be "functional" and therefore, there'd be no reason to call it
"pseudo".
It's just that the "vice-versa" struck me funny.
--Ram
me at ram.org || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
Person man, person man. Hit on the head with a frying pan.
Lives his life in a garbage can. Person man,
is depressed or is he a mess? Does he feel totally worthless?
Who came up with person man? Degraded man, person man. ---TMBG
