Purifying selection on splice-related motifs, not expression level nor RNA folding, explains nearly all constraint on human lincRNAs.

ABSTRACT: There are two strong and equally important predictors of rates of human protein evolution: The amount the gene is expressed and the proportion of exonic sequence devoted to control splicing, mediated largely by selection on exonic splice enhancer (ESE) motifs. Is the same true for noncoding RNAs, known to be under very weak purifying selection? Prior evidence suggests that selection at splice sites in long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) is important. We now report multiple lines of evidence indicating that the great majority of purifying selection operating on lincRNAs in humans is splice related. Splice-related parameters explain much of the between-gene variation in evolutionary rate in humans. Expression rate is not a relevant predictor, although expression breadth is weakly so. I

SUBMITTER: Schuler A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4245815 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature