5 IDENTICAL INTRON POSITIONS IN ANCIENT DUPLICATED GENES OF EUBACTERIAL ORIGIN

被引:95
作者
KERSANACH, R [1 ]
BRINKMANN, H [1 ]
LIAUD, MF [1 ]
ZHANG, DX [1 ]
MARTIN, W [1 ]
CERFF, R [1 ]
机构
[1] TECH UNIV CAROLO WILHELMINA BRAUNSCHWEIG,INST GENET,POSTFACH 3329,D-38023 BRAUNSCHWEIG,GERMANY
关键词
D O I
10.1038/367387a0
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
IN 1985 Cornish-Bowden wrote ''although there is now much to suggest that introns are an ancient relic of primordial genes, convincing proof must await the discovery of clearly corresponding intron arrangements in genes that arose by duplication before the separation of prokaryotes and eukaryotes''1. Genes for chloroplast and cytosolic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases of eukaryotes are descendants of an ancient gene family that existed in the common ancestor of extant eubacteria. During eukaryotic evolution, both genes were transferred to the nucleus from the antecedents of present-day chloroplasts and mitochondria. respectively2-5. Here we report the discovery of five spliceosomal introns at positions that are precisely conserved between nuclear genes for this chloroplast/cytosol enzyme pair. These data provide strong evidence in favour of the 'introns early' hypothesis, which proposes that introns were present in the earliest cells, consistent with the idea that introns facilitated the assembly of primordial genes by accelerating the rate of exon shuffling6-13.
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页码:387 / 389
页数:3
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