Finding exonic islands in a sea of non-coding sequence: splicing related constraints on protein composition and evolution are common in intron-rich genomes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In mammals, splice-regulatory domains impose marked trends on the relative abundance of certain amino acids near exon-intron boundaries. Is this a mammalian particularity or symptomatic of exonic splicing regulation across taxa? Are such trends more common in species that a priori have a harder time identifying exon ends, that is, those with pre-mRNA rich in intronic sequence? We address these questions surveying exon composition in a sample of phylogenetically diverse genomes.

Results

Biased amino acid usage near exon-intron boundaries is common throughout the metazoa but not restricted to the metazoa. There is extensive cross-species concordance as to which amino acids are affected, and reduced/elevated abundances are well predicted by knowledge of splice enhanc

SUBMITTER: Warnecke T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2374712 | biostudies-literature | 2008

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature