Orthologs are genes in different species which evolved from a common ancestral gene. Due to their separation following a speciation event, orthologs may diverge, but usually have similarity at the seqence and structure levels; furthermore, orthologs usually have identical functions. Orthology, like paralogy, is a type of homology. This stylistic schematic diagram shows a gene in relation to the double helix structure of DNA and to a chromosome (right). ... Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolutionary theory In the life sciences, evolution is a change in the traits of living organisms over generations, including the emergence of new species. ... Used to describe two genes which share significant homology within the same species. ... Two or more structures are said to be homologous if they are alike because of shared ancestry. ...
Ortholog prediction is an important facet of comparative genomics and is frequently used in genome annotation, gene function characterization, evolutionary genomics, and in the identification of conserved regulatory elements.
Orthologs are commonly defined as genes that have diverged after a speciation event [1], whereas genes that have diverged after a gene duplication event, either before a speciation event (out-paralogs) or after a speciation event (in-paralogs), are collectively known as paralogs.
Orthologs between these three species (and other sets of species subsequently examined) were predicted using a transitive RBH approach, applied to the deduced proteins from complete genome sequences [10-12].
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