Genomes in Motion
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
The examination of a sequenced genome produces many fascinating insights into how genes function, as well as tantalizing hints about the importance of gene orders and orientation. Indeed a static view of any single genome leads to a number of hypotheses regarding the history of its organization. Since the genome projects began, it has been clear that many of the questions arising from the examination of any single genome might well be resolved by having other genomes with which to compare. We now have a small collection of fairly complete eukaryotic genome sequences to examine (two distantly related yeasts, a nematode, an insect, and a higher plant). Although other sequences are near completion, they are not yet of sufficiently high quality that they can be confidently used in this type of comparison. Existing genome sequences are evolutionarily widely separated and the organisms are morphologically very different. Thus they are not yet very helpful when one wants to consider the forces and mechanisms that have lead …
