Complex Early Genes

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2005 Feb 3

PMID 15687506

Citations 70

Authors

Scott W Roy

Walter Gilbert

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We use the pattern of intron conservation in 684 groups of orthologs from seven fully sequenced eukaryotic genomes to provide maximum likelihood estimates of the number of introns present in the same orthologs in various eukaryotic ancestors. We find: (i) intron density in the plant-animal ancestor was high, perhaps two-thirds that of humans and three times that of Drosophila; and (ii) intron density in the ancestral bilateran was also high, equaling that of humans and four times that of Drosophila. We further find that modern introns are generally very old, with two-thirds of modern bilateran introns dating to the ancestral bilateran and two-fifths of modern plant, animal, and fungus introns dating to the plant-animal ancestor. Intron losses outnumber gains over a large range of eukaryotic lineages. These results show that early eukaryotic gene structures were very complex, and that simplification, not embellishment, has dominated subsequent evolution.

Citing Articles

Identification and Characterization of SQUAMOSA Promoter Binding Protein-like Transcription Factor Family Members in and Their Expression Profiles in Response to Abiotic Stresses.

Wang S, Hu W, Zhang X, Liu Y, Liu F Plants (Basel). 2025; 14(4).

PMID: 40006777 PMC: 11859874. DOI: 10.3390/plants14040520.

Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of the cellulose synthase gene family in potato ( L.).

Gong H, Ma J, Dusengemungu L, Feng Z Front Plant Sci. 2024; 15:1457958.

PMID: 39722880 PMC: 11668584. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1457958.

Phylogenetic Analysis of 590 Species Reveals Distinct Evolutionary Patterns of Intron-Exon Gene Structures Across Eukaryotic Lineages.

Glick L, Castiglione S, Loewenthal G, Raia P, Pupko T, Mayrose I Mol Biol Evol. 2024; 41(12).

PMID: 39657604 PMC: 11649378. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msae248.

Genome-wide identification of the gene family and functional analysis of putative genes in tobacco ( L.).

Wu M, Li Y, Liu Z, Xia L, Xiang Y, Zhao L Front Plant Sci. 2024; 15:1400213.

PMID: 39040505 PMC: 11261167. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1400213.

Where the minor things are: a pan-eukaryotic survey suggests neutral processes may explain much of minor intron evolution.

Larue G, Roy S Nucleic Acids Res. 2023; 51(20):10884-10908.

PMID: 37819006 PMC: 10639083. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad797.

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