Origin of introns by 'intronization' of exonic sequences.
The mechanisms of spliceosomal intron creation have proved elusive. Here we describe a new mechanism: the recruitment of internal exonic sequences ('intronization') in Caenorhabditis species. The numbers of intronization events and introns gained by other mechanisms are similar, suggesting that intronization significantly contributes to recent intron creation in nematodes. Intronization is more common than the reverse process, loss of splicing of retained introns. Finally, these findings link alternative splicing with modern intron creation.
Irimia
Manuel
M
Departament de Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona 08028, Spain.
Rukov
Jakob Lewin
JL
Penny
David
D
Vinther
Jeppe
J
Garcia-Fernandez
Jordi
J
Roy
Scott William
SW
D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002107:Caenorhabditis / Q000235:genetics; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics; D018509:DNA, Helminth / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005091:Exons; D007438:Introns; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
D018509:DNA, Helminth