Protein Polymorphism Is Negatively Correlated with Conservation of Intronic Sequences and Complexity of Expression Patterns in Drosophila melanogaster

• Published in: Journal of molecular evolution Vol. 64; no. 5; pp. 511 - 518
• Main Authors: Petit, Natalia, Casillas, Sònia, Ruiz, Alfredo, Barbadilla, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany New York : Springer-Verlag 01.05.2007; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animals; Base Sequence; Coding nucleotide polymorphism; Conserved noncoding sequences; Conserved Sequence - genetics; Drosophila melanogaster; Drosophila melanogaster - genetics; Drosophila Proteins - genetics; Drosophila Proteins - metabolism; Evolution, Molecular; Gene expression pattern; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation - genetics; Genes; Genetics; Introns - genetics; Mutation; Polymorphism, Genetic; Protein evolution
• ISSN: 0022-2844; 1432-1432
• DOI: 10.1007/s00239-006-0047-5

We report a significant negative correlation between nonsynonymous polymorphism and intron length in Drosophila melanogaster. This correlation is similar to that between protein divergence and intron length previously reported in Drosophila. We show that the relationship can be explained by the content of conserved noncoding sequences (CNS) within introns. In addition, genes with a high regulatory complexity and many genetic interactions also exhibit larger amounts of CNS within their introns and lower values of nonsynonymous polymorphism. The present study provides relevant evidence on the importance of intron content and expression patterns on the levels of coding polymorphism.