Origin of exon skipping-rich transcriptomes in animals driven by evolution of gene architecture.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Alternative splicing, particularly through intron retention and exon skipping, is a major layer of pre-translational regulation in eukaryotes. While intron retention is believed to be the most prevalent mode across non-animal eukaryotes, animals have unusually high rates of exon skipping. However, when and how this high prevalence of exon skipping evolved is unknown. Since exon skipping can greatly expand proteomes, answering these questions sheds light on the evolution of higher organismal complexity in metazoans.

Results

We used RNA-seq data to quantify exon skipping and intron retention frequencies across 65 eukaryotic species, with particular focus on early branching animals and unicellular holozoans. We found that only bilaterians have significantly increased

SUBMITTER: Grau-Bove X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6142364 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature