A High Percentage of Introns in Human Genes Were Present Early in Animal Evolution Evidence from the Basal Metazoan Nematostella vectensis

• Published in: Genome Informatics Vol. 17; no. 1; pp. 219 - 229
• Main Authors: Sullivan, James C., Finnerty, John R., Reitzel, Adam M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japan Japanese Society for Bioinformatics 2006
• Subjects: Animals; Anopheles - genetics; Arabidopsis - genetics; Caenorhabditis elegans - genetics; Drosophila melanogaster - genetics; Evolution, Molecular; Expressed Sequence Tags; gene structure; Humans; intron evolution; Introns - genetics; Nematostella vectensis; Plasmodium falciparum - genetics; Saccharomyces cerevisiae - genetics; Sea Anemones - genetics

Intronic sequences represent a large fraction of most eukaryotic genomes, and they are knownto play a critical role in genome evolution. Based on the conserved location of introns, conservedsequence within introns, and direct experimental evidence, it is becoming increasingly clear thatintrons perfo...