title: The recent origins of introns.
abstract: Accumulating evidence that introns are highly restricted in their phylogenetic distribution strongly supports the view that introns were inserted late in eukaryotic evolution into preformed genes and, hence, that exon-shuffling played no role in the assembly of primordial genes. Potential mechanisms of intron insertion and the possible evolution of nuclear introns and their splicing machinery from self-splicing group II introns are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Palmer
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Logsdon
mesh_terms: D000828:Animal Population Groups / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002467:Cell Nucleus; D005091:Exons; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D005796:Genes; D007438:Introns; D015388:Organelles; D010802:Phylogeny; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics; D012326:RNA Splicing