@article{TEXTUAL,
      recid = {10204},
      author = {Zhang, Yong E. and Landback, Patrick and Vibranovski,  Maria D. and Long, Manyuan},
      title = {Accelerated Recruitment of New Brain Development Genes  into the Human Genome},
      journal = {PLOS Biology},
      address = {2011-10-18},
      number = {TEXTUAL},
      abstract = {<p>How the human brain evolved has attracted tremendous  interests for decades. Motivated by case studies of  primate-specific genes implicated in brain function, we  examined whether or not the young genes, those emerging  genome-wide in the lineages specific to the primates or  rodents, showed distinct spatial and temporal patterns of  transcription compared to old genes, which had existed  before primate and rodent split. We found consistent  patterns across different sources of expression data: there  is a significantly larger proportion of young genes  expressed in the fetal or infant brain of humans than in  mouse, and more young genes in humans have expression  biased toward early developing brains than old genes. Most  of these young genes are expressed in the evolutionarily  newest part of human brain, the neocortex. Remarkably, we  also identified a number of human-specific genes which are  expressed in the prefrontal cortex, which is implicated in  complex cognitive behaviors. The young genes upregulated in  the early developing human brain play diverse functional  roles, with a significant enrichment of transcription  factors. Genes originating from different mechanisms show a  similar expression bias in the developing brain. Moreover,  we found that the young genes upregulated in early brain  development showed rapid protein evolution compared to old  genes also expressed in the fetal brain. Strikingly, genes  expressed in the neocortex arose soon after its  morphological origin. These four lines of evidence suggest  that positive selection for brain function may have  contributed to the origination of young genes expressed in  the developing brain. These data demonstrate a striking  recruitment of new genes into the early development of the  human brain.</p>},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/10204},
}