Genome-wide identification of gene loss events suggests loss relics as a potential source of functional lncRNAs in humans.

Gene loss is a prevalent source of genetic variation in genome evolution. Calling loss events effectively and efficiently is a critical step for systematically characterizing their functional and phylogenetic profiles genome-wide. Here, we developed a novel pipeline integrating orthologous inference and genome alignment. Interestingly, we identified 33 gene loss events that give rise to evolutionarily novel lncRNAs that show distinct expression features and could be associated with various functions related to growth, development, immunity and reproduction, suggesting loss relics as a potential source of functional lncRNAs in humans. Our data also demonstrated that the rates of protein gene loss are variable among different lineages with distinct functional biases.