Sequencing refractory regions in bird genomes are hotspots for accelerated protein evolution.

Background: Approximately 1000 protein encoding genes common for vertebrates are still unannotated in avian genomes. Are these genes evolutionary lost or are they not yet found for technical reasons? Using genome landscapes as a tool to visualize large-scale regional effects of genome evolution, we reexamined this question.

Results: On basis of gene annotation in non-avian vertebrate genomes, we established a list of 15,135 common vertebrate genes.

Regional effect on the molecular clock rate of protein evolution in Eutherian and Metatherian genomes.

Background: Different types of proteins diverge at vastly different rates. Moreover, the same type of protein has been observed to evolve with different rates in different phylogenetic lineages. In the present study we measured the rates of protein evolution in Eutheria (placental mammals) and Metatheria (marsupials) on a genome-wide basis and we propose that the gene position in the genome landscape has an important influence on the rate of protein divergence.