Questioning the Ubiquity of Neofunctionalization
Figure 2
He and Zhang [6] illustrate the presence of neofunctionalization through interaction data analysis.
(A) Paralogous proteins 1 and 2 initially share all 3 interacting partners. (B) In the absence of neofunctionalization, the number of interacting partners should remain at 3 as redundant interactions are lost over time. He and Zhang show that the number of interacting partners increases as the age of paralogs increases. (C) The increase in interacting partners is attributed to neofunctionalization (i.e., the de novo gain of interactions).