Precise limitation of concerted evolution to ORFs in mosquito Hsp82 genes

Two Hsp82 genes were isolated from the malaria vector Anopheles albimanus in a single lambda phage clone, The two genes are in a head-to-head arrangement separated by approx. 0.9 kbp. Northern hybridizations and 5' RACE demonstrate that both genes are transcribed, have moderate levels of constitutive transcription, and are also heat-inducible with maximum transcript accumulation occurring after 40 degrees C heat shocks. Both genes have typical heat-shock promoters and conserved intron boundaries in the untranslated leaders. The open reading frames are 99.6% identical differing in only nine silent nucleotide positions in the 2166 bp ORFs. However, precisely outside the ORFs, the flanking DNB of the two genes shows no evidence of common derivation, The high degree of identity between the two ORFs appears to be a result of gene conversion occurring by a process similar to that previously suspected in the A. albimanus Hsp70 genes and several D. melanogaster genes arranged as palindromes. This process probably involves a stem-loop intermediate and is restricted in extent by flanking sequence divergence. These Hsp82 genes clearly demonstrate the extreme precision with which gene conversion can lead to protein-coding-region homogeneity yet allow flanking DNA divergence.