title: Acquisition of inverted GSTM exons by an intron of primate GSTM5 gene.
abstract: The human GSTM gene family is composed of five gene members, GSTM1-5, and plays an important role in detoxification. In this study, the human GSTM5 gene was found to have a long inverted repeat (LIR) in intron 5. The LIR is able to form a stem-loop structure with a 31-bp stem and a 9-nt loop. The intronic LIR was also identified in other primates but not in non-primates. The human and chimpanzee LIRs had undergone compensating mutations that make the stem loop more stable, suggesting a functional role for the LIR. Sequence homology showed that the LIR was actually a part of inverted exons acquired by the intron. Results of phylogenetic analysis indicate that the inverted exons were derived from exon 5 of GSTM4 and exon 5 of GSTM1. The intronic LIR and inverted GSTM exons can probably introduce complexity in the expression of GSTM gene family.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences and Genome Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Frederick C C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Leung
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005091:Exons / Q000235:genetics*; D005982:Glutathione Transferase / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns / Q000235:genetics*; D055029:Inverted Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010802:Phylogeny; D011323:Primates / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D057345:Sequence Inversion / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D005982:Glutathione Transferase