Intron dynamics in ribosomal protein genes.
The role of spliceosomal introns in eukaryotic genomes remains obscure. A large scale analysis of intron presence/absence patterns in many gene families and species is a necessary step to clarify the role of these introns. In this analysis, we used a maximum likelihood method to reconstruct the evolution of 2,961 introns in a dataset of 76 ribosomal protein genes from 22 eukaryotes and validated the results by a maximum parsimony method. Our results show that the trends of intron gain and loss differed across species in a given kingdom but appeared to be consistent within subphyla. Most subphyla in the dataset diverged around 1 billion years ago, when the "Big Bang" radiation occurred. We speculate that spliceosomal introns may play a role in the explosion of many eukaryotes at the Big Bang radiation.
Yoshihama
Maki
M
Frontier Science Research Center, University of Miyazaki, Kiyotake, Miyazaki, Japan.
Nguyen
Hung D
HD
Kenmochi
Naoya
N
D000818:Animals; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D005810:Multigene Family; D012269:Ribosomal Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D017381:Spliceosomes / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
D012269:Ribosomal Proteins