Novel Genes from Formation to Function

Table 1

Novel genes described (less than 50 million years (mys) old): Their formation, expression and function. The genes are ordered by age.

Gene	Mechanisms	Functions	Expression tissue	Species, genome location	Age (mys)	References
Monkey-king (mkg)	Duplication by retroposition and gene fission	Not determined	D. simulans/D. sechellia only males, D. mauritania males and females	D. simulans, D. sechellia, D. mauritania, X chromosome (chr.)	1-2	[23]
Quetzalcoatl	Duplication, gene fusion	Not determined	Early pupae, adult females, and male testes	D. melanogaster	<2	[40]
Ifc-2h	Duplication by retroposition	Not determined	Whole body	D. simulans, D. sechellia, D. mauritiana	2	[41]
Hun	Exon shuffling by illegitimate recombination	Not determined	Testis	D. sechellia, D. mauritania, D. simulans	2-3	[42]
Jingwei	Exon shuffling, retroposition	Not determined	Testis	D. teissieri, D. yakuba, D. santomea	2-3	[43]
Sphinx	Exon shuffling, retroposition	Male courtship behaviour	Embryo, pupae, adult of males and females	D. melanogaster, chr. 4	2-3	[44, 45]
Poldi	De novo emergence from intergenic DNA	Involved in spermatogenesis, perhaps through chromatin modification pathways	Testis	Mus mus domesticus and four other species in the Mus genus.	2.5-3.5	[38]
Adh-Twain	Duplication, gene fusion	Not determined	Larvae, adult males and females	D. subobscura, D. guanche, D. madeirensis	3	[22, 46]
CG32582, CG32712, CG15323, CG32690, CG31909	From non-coding sequences	Not determined	Testis	D. melanogaster, D. simulans	2–5	[37]
Sdic	Duplication, gene fusion	Sperm competition	Testis	D. melanogaster, X chr.	<5.4	[47–49]
Dntf-2r	Duplication by retroposition	Not determined	Testis	D. melanogaster, D. simulans, D. sechellia, D. mauritiana, 2nd chr.	3–12	[50]
Nsr (kep1 gene family)	Duplication	Spermatogenesis	Testis (enriched in primary spermatocytes)	D. melanogaster subgroup, 2nd chr.	5.4–12	[51]
CG3927 (kep1 gene family)	Duplication	Spermatogenesis	Testis (enriched in primary spermatocytes)	D. melanogaster subgroup, 2nd chr.	5.4–12	[51]
CG4021 (kep1 gene family)	Duplication	Spermatogenesis	Testis (enriched in primary spermatocytes)	D. melanogaster subgroup, 2nd chr.	5.4–12	[51]
Sflc	Duplication	Male and female fertility, life expectancy	Not specified	D. melanogaster subgroup	6–11	[52]
Hydra	De novo emergence from intergenic DNA	Not determined	Testis	D. melanogaster subgroup	<13	[53]
PIPSL	Exon shuffling, retrotransposition	Ubiquitin binding	Testis	Humans Chimpanzees	15–19	[54]
Adh-Finnegan	Duplication, gene fusion	Not determined	Pupae and adults	D. buzzatii, D. hydei, D. mettleri, D. mojavensis, D. mulleri (repleta group)	20–30	[45, 46, 55]
Odysseus (OdsH)	Duplication	Involved in sperm function	Mainly in male reproductive tissue, but also detected in larvae and embryo	D. melanogaster, D. simulans, D. sechellia, D. mauritiana, D. yakuba	<40 (after split of subgenus Sophophora and Drosophila	[56, 57]
K81	Duplication by retroposition	Telomere capping in postmeiotic male germ cells	Male specific expression (testis: primary spermatocytes), but weak expression also in wild-type females	D. melanogaster subgroup	<30	[58, 59]
Obp57d and Obp57e	Duplication	Taste sensation of octanoic acid	Taste sensilla on the legs	D. melanogaster subgroup	<30	[60, 61]
PGAM3	Exon shuffling, retroposition	Possibly phosphoglycerate mutase activity	White blood cells	Humans, chimpanzees, macaques, X chr.	>25	[45, 62]