Analysis of the evolutionary impact of retrocopies of coding genes in the phylum Chordata.

• Grant number: 24/13830-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: January 01, 2025
• End date: December 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics
• Principal Investigator: Pedro Alexandre Favoretto Galante
• Grantee: Lorraine Christine de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Hospital Sírio-Libanês. Sociedade Beneficente de Senhoras (SBSHSL). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Retrocopies are processed messenger RNA copies that originate through reverse transcription-mediated protein-encoded LINE-1 elements. Retrocopies were first identified in the 1980s in humans and subsequently in several other species, and are therefore considered a recurrent event during mammalian evolution. The complete sequencing of the Human Genome in the 2000s and the subsequent advances in genome sequencing and assembly methodologies of several organisms, as well as the improvement of computational algorithms/pipelines for processing these data, allowed the systematic search for complex structural events, including retrocopy events. In this project, we aim to perform an in-depth and systematic analysis of several aspects of retrocopies in 44 species, including 13 primates, 4 rodents, 12 other mammals, 14 other vertebrates and one invertebrate. In this work, we will systematically investigate the orthology and expression of retrocopies in these species, which should allow us to trace the original and complete evolutionary history of retrocopies and identify those with potential gains of new functionalities resulting from gene duplicates. As a final result, we believe that this broad, yet deep and systematic analysis of retrocopies in 44 species will result in an original, complete and in-depth understanding of how these gene duplicates contribute to the origin of genetic novelties in a species-specific manner and also within each taxonomic order, information still unpublished in the literature.