Age and detection of retroprocessed pseudogenes in murine rodents

Retroprocessed pseudogenes, calmodulin II (psi1, psi2, and psi3 CALMII), psi alpha-tubulin, pi-glutathione S-transferase (psi pi-GST) from rat, lactic acid dehydrogenase (psi LDH) from mouse, and heat shock protein 60 chaperonin (psi HSP60) from Chinese hamster, were examined for their presence in these species by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Pseudogenes of these murine rodents were detected by PCR only in those species in which the genes were originally identified, suggesting that the selected pseudogene of one species arose too recently to be detected in the genomes of the other rodent species. The calculated ages of the rodent pseudogenes ranged from 1.7 Myr (psi alpha-tubulin) to 7.5 Myr (psi3 CALMII) when employing a homologous functional gene of the taxon as a reference in the relative rate test with the mouse or rat as the outgroup. Given the high rate of divergence of the genes of rodents relative to other species, selection of an outgroup with similar mutation rates seems warranted. To justify further the conclusion that the selected pseudogenes were indeed retroprocessed after these three taxa diverged, the presence of the pseudogenes in the genome of different rat species was examined. The existence of psi3 CALMII and psi alpha-tubulin pseudogenes of Rattus norvegicus among species belonging to Rattus sensu stricto is evidence for the common ancestry of this group.