Fate of a redundant gamma-globin gene in the atelid clade of New World monkeys: implications concerning fetal globin gene expression

The pseudogene present in the group of New World monkeys is a gamma1-globin gene, which is the upstream of the two linked simian gamma-globin loci. The three platyrrhine families, Atelidae, Cebidae and Pitheciidae, possess gamma2 as the primary fetally expressed gamma-globin gene. This suggests that regulatory mutations, gene mutations and the distance between the gamma-globin gene and the locus control site may have participated in the acquisition and maintenance of fetal expression, rather than embryonic expression.