No gene is an island

(Institute of Science and Technology Austria) Genes do not exist in isolation. Like beads on a string, they sit next to each other on the chromosomes. So far, little has been known about how the position of a gene on a chromosome affects its evolution. A new study by Calin Guet and Magdalena Steinrück at IST Austria shows that a gene's neighborhood can influence whether and how the activity of a gene changes. The study was published today in eLife.