TY  - JOUR
A1  - Maher, Christopher
A1  - Stein, Lincoln
A1  - Ware, Doreen
T1  - Evolution of Arabidopsis microRNA families through duplication events
Y1  - 2006/04/01 
JF  - Genome Research 
JO  - Genome Research 
SP  - 510 
EP  - 519 
DO  - 10.1101/gr.4680506 
VL  - 16 
IS  - 4 
UR  - http://genome.cshlp.org/content/16/4/510.abstract 
N2  - Recently there has been a great interest in the identification of microRNAs and their targets as well as understanding the spatial and temporal regulation of microRNA genes. To understand how microRNA genes evolve, we looked at several rapidly evolving families in Arabidopsis thaliana, and found that they arose from a process of genome-wide duplication, tandem duplication, and segmental duplication followed by dispersal and diversification, similar to the processes that drive the evolution of protein gene families. Using multiple expression data sets to examine the transcription patterns of different members of the microRNA families, we find the sequence diversification of duplicated microRNA genes to be accompanied by a change in spatial and temporal expression patterns, suggesting that duplicated copies acquire new functionality as they evolve. 
ER  -