The De Novo Emergence of Two Brain Genes in the Human Lineage Appears to be Unsupported

Recently, certain studies have claimed that cognitive features and pathologies unique to humans can be traced to certain changes in the nervous system. These are caused by genes that have likely evolved “from scratch,” not having any coding precursors. The translated proteins would not appear outside of the human lineage and any orthologs in other species should be non-coding. This contrasts with research that has identified a decisive role for duplication, and modifications to regulatory sequences, for such phenotypic traits. Closer examination, however, reveals that the inferred lineage-specific emergence of at least two of these genes is likely a misinterpretation owing to a lack of peptide verification, experimental oversights, and insufficient species comparisons. A possible pseudogenic origin is proposed for one of them. The implications of these claims for the study of molecular evolution are discussed.