Manuel Bernabeu1, José Francisco Sánchez-Herrero1, 2, Pol Huedo3, Alejandro Prieto1, Mário Hüttener1, Julio Rozas1, 2 and Antonio Juárez1, 4Email author BMC Genomics201920:313 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-019-5683-4 © The Author(s). 2019 Received: 29 October 2018 Accepted: 10 April 2019 Published: 24 April 2019 Abstract Background Gene duplication underlies a significant proportion of gene functional diversity and genome complexity in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes.