Evolutionary Modeling of Protein Families by Chromosomal Translocation Events

This chapter introduces a novel model, “evolution of protein domains” (EvoProDom), to describe the evolution of proteins. The model is based on exchange of protein domains in a “mix and merge” manner. Initially, a full description of the model was included with and its application to a collection of 109 organisms with full genomic and proteome data, including protein domain content and orthologous protein annotation predicted from sequences. The chapter mainly focuses on translocations of protein domains, that is reciprocal exchanges between orthologous proteins of diverse organisms. It presents data that shows enrichment of translocation events in trans-splicing events, which is producing novel transcripts fused from two different genes.