In summary, although the sequence homology and gene structure conservation give clear evidence for a common ancestry of the human genes encoding the a and 133 forms of rab GDIs, at this point of evolution they represent a pair of paralogous genes with many different characteristics. Further studies on such gene pairs may shed more light on the mechanisms of gene and genome evolution, especially mechanisms of divergent evolution of genes after duplication events and mechanisms of isochore evolution and genome contraction/expansion.