Gene birth contributes to structural disorder encoded by overlapping genes

S. Willis; J. Masel

We calculated the degree to which birth facilitation elevates ISD using a contrast statement, as half the The ISD of a non-overlapping gene predicts the ISD of the non-ORF frameshifted version of that sequence. Model I regression lines are statistically indistiguishable in our set of 150 nonoverlapping viral genes vs. our set of 27 preoverlapping genes, which are therefore pooled (R 2 = 0.30 and R 2 = 0.24 for the +1 and +2 groups, respectively). (B) The overlapping ISD of the 47 gene pairs with classifiable relative ages. Each datapoint represents one overlapping pair. The regression lines from (A) are superimposed to illustrate the elevation of novel gene ISD born into the already intrinsically high-ISD +2 frame, which destroys the correlation (R 2 = 6.6 × 10 −5 for +2 in contrast to 0.26 for +1). difference between novel and ancestral genes, because exactly half of the genes are novel, and hence elevated above the "normal" ISD level of ancestral genes. By this calculation, birth facilitation accounts for 32% ± 13% of the estimated total difference in ISD between overlapping and non-overlapping genes.