["Gene order along the genome sequence of the human parasite Trypanosoma brucei provides evidence for a 0.5 Mb duplication, comprising the 3' regions of chromosomes 4 and 8. Here, the principal aim was to examine the contribution made by this duplication event to the T. brucei genome sequence, emphasising the consequences for gene content and the evolutionary change subsequently experienced by paralogous gene copies. The duplicated region may be browsed online at http://www.genedb.org/genedb/tryp/48dup_image.jsp", 'Comparisons of trypanosomatid genomes demonstrated widespread gene loss from each duplicon, but also showed that 47% of duplicated genes were retained on both chromosomes as paralogous loci. Secreted and surface-expressed genes were over-represented among retained paralogs, reflecting a bias towards important factors at the host-parasite interface, and consistent with a dosage-balance hypothesis. Genetic divergence in both coding and regulatory regions of retained paralogs was bimodal, with a deficit in moderately divergent paralogs; in particular, non-coding sequences were either conserved or entirely remodelled. The conserved paralogs included examples of remarkable sequence conservation, but also considerable divergence of both coding and regulatory regions. Sequence divergence typically displayed strong negative selection; but several features, such as asymmetric evolutionary rates, positively-selected codons and other non-neutral substitutions, suggested that divergence of some paralogs was driven by functional change. The absence of orthologs to retained paralogs in T. congolense indicated that the duplication event was specific to T. brucei.'] Are evolutionary consequences of a large duplication event in Trypanosoma brucei : chromosomes 4 and 8 partial duplicons?