1 research outputs found
Stability domains of actin genes and genomic evolution
In eukaryotic genes the protein coding sequence is split into several
fragments, the exons, separated by non-coding DNA stretches, the introns.
Prokaryotes do not have introns in their genome. We report the calculations of
stability domains of actin genes for various organisms in the animal, plant and
fungi kingdoms. Actin genes have been chosen because they have been highly
conserved during evolution. In these genes all introns were removed so as to
mimic ancient genes at the time of the early eukaryotic development, i.e.
before introns insertion. Common stability boundaries are found in evolutionary
distant organisms, which implies that these boundaries date from the early
origin of eukaryotes. In general boundaries correspond with introns positions
of vertebrates and other animals actins, but not much for plants and fungi. The
sharpest boundary is found in a locus where fungi, algae and animals have
introns in positions separated by one nucleotide only, which identifies a
hot-spot for insertion. These results suggest that some introns may have been
incorporated into the genomes through a thermodynamic driven mechanism, in
agreement with previous observations on human genes. They also suggest a
different mechanism for introns insertion in plants and animals.Comment: 9 Pages, 7 figures. Phys. Rev. E in pres