title: Protists and the Wild, Wild West of Gene Expression: New Frontiers, Lawlessness, and Misfits.
abstract: The DNA double helix has been called one of life's most elegant structures, largely because of its universality, simplicity, and symmetry. The expression of information encoded within DNA, however, can be far from simple or symmetric and is sometimes surprisingly variable, convoluted, and wantonly inefficient. Although exceptions to the rules exist in certain model systems, the true extent to which life has stretched the limits of gene expression is made clear by nonmodel systems, particularly protists (microbial eukaryotes). The nuclear and organelle genomes of protists are subject to the most tangled forms of gene expression yet identified. The complicated and extravagant picture of the underlying genetics of eukaryotic microbial life changes how we think about the flow of genetic information and the evolutionary processes shaping it. Here, we discuss the origins, diversity, and growing interest in noncanonical protist gene expression and its relationship to genomic architecture.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7; email: dsmit242@uwo.ca.
authors.forename: David Roy
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4; email: pkeeling@mail.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Patrick J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Keeling
mesh_terms: D056890:Eukaryota / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins
keywords: RNA editing; constructive neutral evolution; mitochondrial transcription; plastid transcription; posttranscriptional processing; trans-splicing