Genome distance between regulatory elements of growth-related genes may determine morpho-physiological traits in mammals

Dmitriy^1
1Southern federal university, rdme@yandex.ru

The problem of growth regulation in mammals is one of the long-standing mysteries in biology.
We found significant correlation between morpho-physiological traits and genome distances between conserved elements in neighborhoods of growth-related genes Mycn, Plagl1 and Ezh2 in mammals.
Given these conserved elements may be regulatory as well, we propose that genome distance between them may evolutionary modulate gene expression of these genes and eventually affects phenotype.
It opens intriguing prospect to control morpho-physiological traits of mammals (i.e. adult body mass or longevity) just simply editing genome distance between these elements.