Article
Minimal introns are not "junk".
Genome research - 1 Aug 2002
Yu Jun, Yang Zhiyong, Kibukawa Miho, Paddock Marcia, Passey Douglas A, Wong Gane Ka-Shu
Abstract excerpt
Intron-size distributions for most multicellular (and some unicellular) eukaryotes have a sharp peak at their "minimal intron" size. Across the human population, these minimal introns exhibit an abundance of insertion-deletion polymorphisms, the effect of which is to maintain their optimal size. We argue that minimal introns affect function by enhancing the rate at which mRNA is exported from the cell nucleus.
Topics
- Active Transport, Cell Nucleus
- Alleles
- Animals
- Arabidopsis
- Base Sequence
- Caenorhabditis elegans
- Drosophila melanogaster
- Genes, Helminth
- Genes, Insect
- Genome, Plant
- Humans
- Introns
- Molecular Sequence Data
- Polymorphism, Genetic
- Primates
- RNA Splicing
- RNA, Messenger