A novel homology-based algorithm for the identification of physically linked clusters of paralogous genes

Abstract

Highly diverse phenotypic traits are often encoded by clusters of gene paralogs that are physically linked on chromosomes. Examples include olfactory receptor gene clusters involved in the recognition of diverse odors, defensin and phospholipase gene clusters involved in snake venoms, and Hox gene clusters involved in morphological diversity. Historically, gene clusters have been identified subjectively as genomic neighborhoods containing several paralogs, however, their genomic arrangements are often highly variable with respect to gene number, intergenic distance, and synteny.