Reenacting the birth of an intron

Journal Article · Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Nature Communications

OSTI ID:1050983

Hellsten, Uffe; Aspden, Julie L; Rio, Donald C; Rokhsar, Daniel S

An intron is an extended genomic feature whose function requires multiple constrained positions - donor and acceptor splice sites, a branch point, a polypyrimidine tract and suitable splicing enhancers - that may be distributed over hundreds or thousands of nucleotides. New introns are therefore unlikely to emerge by incremental accumulation of functional sub-elements. Here we demonstrate that a functional intron can be created de novo in a single step by a segmental genomic duplication. This experiment recapitulates in vivo the birth of an intron that arose in the ancestral jawed vertebrate lineage nearly half a billion years ago.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Genomics Division
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1050983
• Report Number(s): LBNL-5050E; TRN: US201218%%1172
• Journal Information: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
FUNCTIONALS
IN VIVO
INTRONS
NUCLEOTIDES
SPLICING
VERTEBRATES