The Vertebrate Genome Annotation (Vega) database

The massive advancements in genomics over recent years have not only provided scope to examine what is shared between the genomes of multiple species but also a unique opportunity to investigate that which is responsible for the differences between species of interest. By comparing the proteomes of two species, certain genes can be clustered and defined as ‘inparalogs ’- duplicated genes which are respectively unique to each of the species in question having arisen at a time-point subsequent to the speciation event that separated the two lineages in question. Here I report on several analyses that make use of inparalogous genes identified in the mouse genome with reference to its close relative the rat. Firstly I describe the implementation of a novel investigative procedure that identifies regions of intragenomic conservation within the upstream sequences of inparalogous gene clusters and report upon the level of resolution that this approach offers with respect to identifying regulatory elements in genomic sequences. In addition to this study, I also describe an investigation into the density of interspersed repeat elements observed in the neighbourhood of