Reconstructing the evolutionary history of complex human gene clusters

Clusters of genes that evolved from single progenitors via repeated segmental duplications present significant challenges to the generation of a truly complete human genome sequence. Such clusters can confound both accurate sequence assembly and downstream computational analysis, yet tliey represent a hotbed of functional innovation, making them of extreme interest. We have developed an algorithm for reconstructing the evolutionary history of gene clusters using only human genomic sequence data. This method allows the tempo of large-scale evolutionary events in human gene clusters to be estimated, which in turn will facilitate primate comparative sequencing studies that will aim to reconstruct their evolutionary history more fully.