As mentioned above, the macaque ALDH7A1P5 genomic sequence lacks intronic regions, suggesting that a reverse transcriptase-mediated event gave rise to this pseudogene (ie having no adjacent promoter or other regulatory sequences). Four additional ALDH7A1 pseudogenes have been identified on chromosomes 5q14 (ALDH7A1P1), 2q31 (ALDH7A1P2), 7q36 (ALDH7A1P3) and 10q21 (ALDH7A1P4) [19]. Macaque ALDH7A1P5 is located on Chr 14, which is not syntenic with human Chr 11 and does not share common origins with any of the human pseudogenes. Therefore, the event that gave rise to ALDH7A1P5 must have taken place within the last 25 million years.
