title: Evidence that introns arose at proto-splice sites.
abstract: The unexpected discovery of introns raised many questions about gene evolution. We provide evidence that actin and tubulin introns were gained between the G and R of the conserved coding sequence C/AAGR that is known to flank introns in general and which we call a proto-splice site. We conclude that the tubulin and actin introns are less ancient than the coding sequence and so could not have been involved in the primary evolution of the tubulin and actin genes.
authors: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council Centre, Cambridge, UK.
authors: N J
authors: NJ
authors: Dibb
authors: A J
authors: AJ
authors: Newman
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005796:Genes; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns; D007448:Invertebrates; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012326:RNA Splicing; D013045:Species Specificity; D014404:Tubulin / Q000235:genetics*; D014714:Vertebrates
chemical_list: D000199:Actins; D014404:Tubulin