Skip Navigation


Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on July 17, 2009
Journal of Heredity 2009 100(5):618-623; doi:10.1093/jhered/esp056
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
100/5/618    most recent
esp056v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Koonin, E. V.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Koonin, E. V.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published by Oxford University Press 2009.

Genome Evolution Collection

Intron-Dominated Genomes of Early Ancestors of Eukaryotes

Eugene V. Koonin

From the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894

Address correspondence to Eugene V. Koonin at the address above, e-mail: koonin{at}ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

Evolutionary reconstructions using maximum likelihood methods point to unexpectedly high densities of introns in protein-coding genes of ancestral eukaryotic forms including the last common ancestor of all extant eukaryotes. Combined with the evidence of the origin of spliceosomal introns from invading Group II self-splicing introns, these results suggest that early ancestral eukaryotic genomes consisted of up to 80% sequences derived from Group II introns, a much greater contribution of introns than that seen in any extant genome. An organism with such an unusual genome architecture could survive only under conditions of a severe population bottleneck.

Key Words: effective population size • endosymbiosis • group II self-splicing introns • origin of eukaryotes • spliceosomal introns

Corresponding Editor: Michael Lynch


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.