Widespread establishment and regulatory impact of Alu exons in human genes

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 108; no. 7; pp. 2837 - 2842
• Main Authors: Shen, Shihao, Lin, Lan, Cai, James J, Jiang, Peng, Kenkel, Elizabeth J, Stroik, Mallory R, Sato, Seiko, Davidson, Beverly L, Xing, Yi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 15.02.2011; National Acad Sciences
• Subjects: Alternative splicing; Alternative Splicing - genetics; Alu Elements - genetics; Biological Sciences; Cerebellum; Cerebellum - metabolism; Computational Biology; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA Mutational Analysis; Evolution; Evolution, Molecular; Exons; Exons - genetics; Gene Expression Profiling - methods; Gene Expression Regulation - genetics; Genes; Genomics; high-throughput nucleotide sequencing; Human subjects; Humans; luciferase; Luciferases; messenger RNA; open reading frames; Primates; Proteins; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Splicing; tissues; transcription factors; Transcription Factors - genetics; transcriptome; translation (genetics); Zinc; zinc finger motif; Zinc Fingers - genetics

The Alu element has been a major source of new exons during primate evolution. Thousands of human genes contain spliced exons derived from Alu elements. However, identifying Alu exons that have acquired genuine biological functions remains a major challenge. We investigated the creation and establis...