Expression attenuation as a mechanism of robustness against gene duplication

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014345118
• Publication Date: 2021-02-01T21:48:59Z
• Authors: Diana Ascencio; Guillaume Diss; Isabelle Gagnon-A...; Alexandre K. Dubé; Alexander DeLuna; Christian R. Landry
• Keywords: Proteasome Endopeptidase Complex; Protein Subunits; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Genes, Essential; Gene Duplication; Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal; Saccharomycetales; Genetic Fitness; Protein Interaction Maps; Biological Sciences

Significance Many studies have focused on the mechanisms of long-term retention of gene duplicates, such as the gain of functions or reciprocal losses. However, such changes are more likely to occur if the duplicates are maintained for a long period. This time span will be short if duplication is immediately deleterious. We measured the distribution of fitness effects of gene duplication for 899 genes in budding yeast. We find that gene duplication is more likely to be deleterious than beneficial. However, contrary to previous models, in general, gene duplication does not affect fitness by altering the organization of protein complexes. We show that expression attenuation may protect complexes from the effects of gene duplication.