deCODE Discovers Gene Variants that May Help to Distribute the Work of Evolution between Men and Women
Scientists from deCODE genetics report the discovery of two common, single-letter variants in the sequence of the human genome (SNPs) that regulate one of the principle motors of evolution. Versions of the two SNPs, located on chromosome 4p16, have a genome-wide impact on the rate of recombination - the reshuffling of the genome that occurs in the formation of eggs and sperm. Recombination is largely responsible for generating human diversity, the novel configurations of the genome that enable the species to adapt and evolve in an ever-changing environment. Yet remarkably, the versions of the SNPs that increase recombination in men decrease it in women, and vice versa. This highly unusual characteristic may enable the variants to help to maintain a fundamental tension crucial for evolutionary success: promoting the generation of significant diversity within a portion of the population but keeping the pace of this change within certain bounds, maintaining it relatively constant overall and so supporting the stability of the genome and the cohesiveness of the species.
The deCODE team identified the SNPs through a genome-wide analysis of more than 300,000 SNPs in approximately 20,000 participants in the company's gene discovery programs. The SNPs, referred to as rs3796619 and rs1670533, are within the RNF212 gene, and are estimated to account for approximately 22% of paternal variability in recombination and 6.5% of maternal variability . Little is known about RNF212, though it is a mammalian homolog of a gene called ZHP-3 known to be crucial for the success of recombination in other organisms. The paper, entitled 'Sequence Variants in the RNF212 Gene Associate with Genomewide Recombination Rate,' is published in Science.
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