Identification and mapping of paralogous genes on a known genomic DNA sequence

Abstract

The completion of whole genome sequencing projects offers the opportunity to examine the organization of genes and the discovery of evolutionarily related genes in a given species. For the beginners in the field, through a specific example, this chapter provides a step-by-step procedure for identifying paralogous genes, using the genome browser at UCSC (http://genome.ucsc.edu/). The example describes identification and mapping in the human genome, the paralogs of TCF12/HTF4. The example identifies TCF3 and TCF4 as paralogs of the TCF12/HTF4 gene. The example also identifies a related sequence, corresponding to a pseudogene, in one of the introns of the JAK2 gene. The procedure described should be applicable to the discovery and creation of maps of paralogous genes in the genomic DNA sequences that are available at the genome browser at UCSC.