Gametophytic selection in Arabidopsis thaliana supports the selective model of intron length reduction.

ABSTRACT: Why do highly expressed genes have small introns? This is an important issue, not least because it provides a testing ground to compare selectionist and neutralist models of genome evolution. Some argue that small introns are selectively favoured to reduce the costs of transcription. Alternatively, large introns might permit complex regulation, not needed for highly expressed genes. This "genome design" hypothesis evokes a regionalized model of control of expression and hence can explain why intron size covaries with intergene distance, a feature also consistent with the hypothesis that highly expressed genes cluster in genomic regions with high deletion rates. As some genes are expressed in the haploid stage and hence subject to especially strong purifying selection, the evolution of gene

SUBMITTER: Seoighe C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1186733 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature