Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 25 November 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5752, pp. 1325 - 1326
DOI: 10.1126/science.1119089
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Vertebrate-Type Intron-Rich Genes in the Marine Annelid Platynereis dumerilii

Florian Raible,1,2* Kristin Tessmar-Raible,1 Kazutoyo Osoegawa,4 Patrick Wincker,5 Claire Jubin,5 Guillaume Balavoine,6 David Ferrier,7 Vladimir Benes,3 Pieter de Jong,4 Jean Weissenbach,5 Peer Bork,2 Detlev Arendt1*

Previous genome comparisons have suggested that one important trend in vertebrate evolution has been a sharp rise in intron abundance. By using genomic data and expressed sequence tags from the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, we provide direct evidence that about two-thirds of human introns predate the bilaterian radiation but were lost from insect and nematode genomes to a large extent. A comparison of coding exon sequences confirms the ancestral nature of Platynereis and human genes. Thus, the urbilaterian ancestor had complex, intron-rich genes that have been retained in Platynereis and human.

1 Developmental Unit, European Molecular Biological Laboratory (EMBL), Meyerhofstraße 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
2 Computational Unit, European Molecular Biological Laboratory (EMBL), Meyerhofstraße 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
3 Genomics Core Facility, European Molecular Biological Laboratory (EMBL), Meyerhofstraße 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
4 Children's Hospital, Oakland Research Institute, 747 52nd Street, Oakland, CA 94609, USA.
5 Génoscope, Centre National de Séquençage and CNRS UMR 8030, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, CP 5706 91057 Evry Cedex, France.
6 Centre de Génétique Moléculaire du CNRS, Bâtiment 26, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
7 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: raible{at}embl.de (F.R.); arendt{at}embl.de (D.A.)

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Near Intron Positions Are Reliable Phylogenetic Markers: An Application to Holometabolous Insects.
V. Krauss, C. Thummler, F. Georgi, J. Lehmann, P. F. Stadler, and C. Eisenhardt (2008)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 25, 821-830
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Rare Genomic Characters Do Not Support Coelomata: Intron Loss/Gain.
S. W. Roy and M. Irimia (2008)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 25, 620-623
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Spliceosomal introns as tools for genomic and evolutionary analysis.
M. Irimia and S. W. Roy (2008)
Nucleic Acids Res. 36, 1703-1712
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Investigation of Loss and Gain of Introns in the Compact Genomes of Pufferfishes (Fugu and Tetraodon).
Y.-H. Loh, S. Brenner, and B. Venkatesh (2008)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 25, 526-535
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Widespread Evolutionary Conservation of Alternatively Spliced Exons in Caenorhabditis.
M. Irimia, J. L. Rukov, D. Penny, J. Garcia-Fernandez, J. Vinther, and S. W. Roy (2008)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 25, 375-382
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Large-scale comparative analysis of splicing signals and their corresponding splicing factors in eukaryotes.
S. Schwartz, J. Silva, D. Burstein, T. Pupko, E. Eyras, and G. Ast (2008)
Genome Res. 18, 88-103
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Evolutionary Dynamics of Introns in Plastid-Derived Genes in Plants: Saturation Nearly Reached but Slow Intron Gain Continues.
M. K. Basu, I. B. Rogozin, O. Deusch, T. Dagan, W. Martin, and E. V. Koonin (2008)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 25, 111-119
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
On the Incidence of Intron Loss and Gain in Paralogous Gene Families.
S. W. Roy and D. Penny (2007)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 24, 1579-1581
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Sea Anemone Genome Reveals Ancestral Eumetazoan Gene Repertoire and Genomic Organization.
N. H. Putnam, M. Srivastava, U. Hellsten, B. Dirks, J. Chapman, A. Salamov, A. Terry, H. Shapiro, E. Lindquist, V. V. Kapitonov, et al. (2007)
Science 317, 86-94
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
In search of lost introns.
M. Csuros, J. A. Holey, and I. B. Rogozin (2007)
Bioinformatics 23, i87-i96
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Three distinct modes of intron dynamics in the evolution of eukaryotes.
L. Carmel, Y. I. Wolf, I. B. Rogozin, and E. V. Koonin (2007)
Genome Res. 17, 1034-1044
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
A Very High Fraction of Unique Intron Positions in the Intron-Rich Diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana Indicates Widespread Intron Gain.
S. W. Roy and D. Penny (2007)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 24, 1447-1457
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Polychaete trunk neuroectoderm converges and extends by mediolateral cell intercalation.
P. R. H. Steinmetz, F. Zelada-Gonzales, C. Burgtorf, J. Wittbrodt, and D. Arendt (2007)
PNAS 104, 2727-2732
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Different levels of alternative splicing among eukaryotes.
E. Kim, A. Magen, and G. Ast (2007)
Nucleic Acids Res. 35, 125-131
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Patterns of Intron Loss and Gain in Plants: Intron Loss-Dominated Evolution and Genome-Wide Comparison of O. sativa and A. thaliana.
S. W. Roy and D. Penny (2007)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 24, 171-181
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Very Little Intron Gain in Entamoeba histolytica Genes Laterally Transferred from Prokaryotes.
S. W. Roy, M. Irimia, and D. Penny (2006)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 23, 1824-1827
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
JAK/STAT signalling in Drosophila: insights into conserved regulatory and cellular functions..
N. I. Arbouzova and M. P. Zeidler (2006)
Development 133, 2605-2616
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Genomics and the irreducible nature of eukaryote cells..
C. G. Kurland, L. J. Collins, and D. Penny (2006)
Science 312, 1011-1014
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Toward automatic reconstruction of a highly resolved tree of life..
F. D. Ciccarelli, T. Doerks, C. von Mering, C. J. Creevey, B. Snel, and P. Bork (2006)
Science 311, 1283-1287
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products