Highly constrained intergenic Drosophila ultraconserved elements are candidate ncRNAs.

ABSTRACT: Eukaryotes contain short (∼80-200 bp) regions that have few or no substitutions among species that represent hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary divergence. These ultraconserved elements (UCEs) are candidates for containing essential functions, but their biological roles remain largely unknown. Here, we report the discovery and characterization of UCEs from 12 sequenced Drosophila species. We identified 98 elements ≥80 bp long with very high conservation across the Drosophila phylogeny. Population genetic analyses reveal that these UCEs are not present in mutational cold spots. Instead we infer that they experience a level of selective constraint almost 10-fold higher compared with missense mutations in protein-coding sequences, which is substantially higher than that observed pr

SUBMITTER: Kern AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5322558 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature