Gains, Losses and Changes of Function after Gene Duplication: Study of the Metallothionein Family
Figure 2
Illustration of the MT family in humans and mice.
In mice, the family comprises four functionally active genes (mt1 to mt4). In humans, the family harbours a single-copy of MT2, MT3 and MT4, and by a tandemly duplicated array of the MT1 duplicates spanning about 66.6 Kb, where eight active genes (MT1A to MT1J, MT1L, MT1M and MT1X) and five pseudogenes (MT1L, MT1J, MT1D, MT1C and MT1I) are known. The direction of transcription for each active gene is indicated by an arrow. Genes are coloured as follows: MT1 (dark blue), MT2 (light blue), MT3 (red) and MT4 (green). Pseudogenes are represented by dashed boxes. Numbers corresponding to the sizes of gene and intergenic regions are given in Kb.