Kinase Family CDK

CDK11

CDK11 human duplication

The CDK11 gene is tandemly duplicated in the human genome, but is a single copy in chimp and other vertebrates (other than rat, which has a retrotransposed copy on the X chromosome). Whether the second copy is functional, or even real, is still somewhat uncertain. The two copies of the gene, and most of the tandemly duplicated region is very similar by sequence, and in the reference human genome (GRCh37) a region spanning exons 3-4 of the CDK11B copy are missing.

The two genes differ at 25 positions, including a 6 nt coding indel and 9 other non-synonymous changes. The CDK11 sequence is highly conserved across vertebrates: in 9 of these 11 AA polymorphisms, CDK11A agrees with all or almost all vertebrate homologs, suggesting that the B form is either under strong positive selection or is degenerating into a pseudogene.

Most polymorphisms map to the exon 3-4 region,