Tandem Gene Clusters as Phylogenetic Anchors Reveal the Hidden History of Vertebrate Visual Opsins.

David Lagman; Christina A Bergqvist; Shigehiro Kuraku

doi:10.1093/molbev/msaf231

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Tandem Gene Clusters as Phylogenetic Anchors Reveal the Hidden History of Vertebrate Visual Opsins.

David Lagman·Christina A Bergqvist·Shigehiro Kuraku

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Abstract

The expansion of the visual opsin gene family was a crucial event in the diversification of vertebrate vision in evolution. Additional expansions in phototransduction-related genes facilitated the development of dim-light (rods) and color vision (cones). Sequence-based phylogeny and gene positions from extant jawed vertebrate genomes are insufficient to untangle the visual opsin duplications in early vertebrates. Additionally, jawless vertebrates share a visual opsin gene repertoire with jawed vertebrates which conflicts with recent findings of distinct whole-genome duplications in each lineage. To resolve these questions, we analyzed jawless vertebrate genomes, focusing on visual opsin genes. Our findings, based on chromosomal arrangements and relationships, confirm tandem duplications of visual opsins before the vertebrate radiation.

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Animals Phylogeny Vertebrates Multigene Family Evolution, Molecular Gene Duplication Opsins jawed vertebrates jawless vertebrates tandem duplications visual opsins whole-genome duplications Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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David Lagman, Christina A Bergqvist, Shigehiro Kuraku. 2025-10-01. Tandem Gene Clusters as Phylogenetic Anchors Reveal the Hidden History of Vertebrate Visual Opsins.. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev%2Fmsaf231

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