>I know of at least one example of the revival of a pseudogene to regain
>close to its original function. I do not remember full details (but can
>look them up if anyone wants-I do know the reference), but basically a
>pseudogene in artiodactyls was converted into a functional gene in the
>bovids (cows, water buffalo, etc.). The former pseudogene is active in a
>different part of the body than the related genes. It is thought to have
>been revived by gene conversion, interacting with the functional version,
>but I am not sure if this is certain.
I would love to know that reference. But I isn't is possible that this gene
never became a pseudogene in the first place?
>Pseudogenes could produce evolutionary novelty if the right mutations
>occurred to fix whatever made them non-functional. (Unless the error were
>merely an early stop codon, this would be most likely to involve insertion
>of functional DNA or a correction mechanism like gene
>conversion.) However, many pseudogenes have multiple problems such as
>early stop codons, errors in the initiation site, etc. and so would be
>difficult to revive.
It seems to me that the possibility of pseudogenes generating variability
is very small. I think that a more reasonable alternative would be that
duplicated gene are coopted to other functions without ever becoming
pseudogenes. If this is true, the existence of pseudogenes could be just a
byproduct of the generation of variation through gene duplication. Does
this make sense?
Marcio
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