title: Minimal introns are not "junk".
abstract: Intron-size distributions for most multicellular (and some unicellular) eukaryotes have a sharp peak at their "minimal intron" size. Across the human population, these minimal introns exhibit an abundance of insertion-deletion polymorphisms, the effect of which is to maintain their optimal size. We argue that minimal introns affect function by enhancing the rate at which mRNA is exported from the cell nucleus.
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Genome Center, Department of Medicine, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. junyu@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Zhiyong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Miho
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kibukawa
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paddock
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Passey
authors.forename: Gane Ka-Shu
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D021581:Active Transport, Cell Nucleus / Q000502:physiology; D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics; D017238:Genes, Helminth / Q000235:genetics; D017344:Genes, Insect / Q000235:genetics; D018745:Genome, Plant; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D011323:Primates; D012326:RNA Splicing / Q000235:genetics; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger