Topic summary
Gene fusion
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Fusion gene.
Evolution
Gene fusion plays a key role in the evolution of gene architecture. We can observe its effect if gene fusion occurs in coding sequences. Duplication, sequence divergence, and recombination are the major contributors at work in gene evolution. These events can probably produce new genes from already existing parts. When gene fusion happens in non-coding sequence region, it can lead to the misregulation of the expression of a gene now under the control of the cis-regulatory sequence of another gene. If it happens in coding sequences, gene fusion cause the assembly of a new gene, then it allows the appearance of new functions by adding peptide modules into a multi-domain protein. The detecting methods to inventory gene fusion events on a large biological scale can provide insights about the multi modular architecture of proteins.