Random genetic drift sets an upper limit on mRNA splicing accuracy in metazoans.

ABSTRACT: Most eukaryotic genes undergo alternative splicing (AS), but the overall functional significance of this process remains a controversial issue. It has been noticed that the complexity of organisms (assayed by the number of distinct cell types) correlates positively with their genome-wide AS rate. This has been interpreted as evidence that AS plays an important role in adaptive evolution by increasing the functional repertoires of genomes. However, this observation also fits with a totally opposite interpretation: given that 'complex' organisms tend to have small effective population sizes (Ne), they are expected to be more affected by genetic drift, and hence more prone to accumulate deleterious mutations that decrease splicing accuracy. Thus, according to this 'drift barrier' theor

SUBMITTER: Benitiere F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10932544 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature