This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Gene family is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
It has been suggested that Multigene family be merged into this article or section. () |
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (January 2007) |
A gene family is a set of genes with a known homology. They are generally biochemically similar. Genes are categorized this way into families, depending on shared nucleotide or protein sequences.
Phylogenetic techniques can be used as a more rigorous test. The positions of introns within the coding sequence can be used to infer common ancestry. Knowing the sequence of the protein encoded by a gene can allow researchers to apply methods that find similarities among protein sequences that provide more information than similarities or differences among DNA sequences. Furthermore, knowledge of the protein's secondary structure gives further information about ancestry, since the organization of secondary structural elements presumably would be conserved even if the amino acid sequence changes considerably.citation needed These methods often rely upon predictions based upon the DNA sequence.
If the genes of a gene family encode proteins, the term protein family is often used in an analogous manner to gene family.
The expansion or contraction of gene families along a specific lineage can be due to chance, or can be the result of natural selection. To distinguish between these two cases is often difficult in practice. Recent work uses a combination of statistical models and algorithmic techniques to detect gene families that are under the effect of natural selection. The Evolution of Mammalian Gene Families
See also
 |
This genetics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 17 November 2008, at 04:04.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Gene family".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.