Exon size distribution and the origin of introns |
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Authors: | Sigurbjorg Gudlaugsdottir D Ross Boswell Graham R Wood Jun Ma |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Statistics, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia;(2) Middlemore Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand |
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Abstract: | Since it was first recognised that eukaryotic genes are fragmented into coding segments (exons) separated by non-coding segments
(introns), the reason for this phenomenon has been debated. There are two dominant theories: that the piecewise arrangement
of genes allows functional protein domains, represented by exons, to recombine by shuffling to form novel proteins with combinations
of functions; or that introns represent parasitic DNA that can infest the eukaryotic genome because it does not interfere
grossly with the fitness of its host. Differing distributions of exon lengths are predicted by these two theories. In this
paper we examine distributions of exon lengths for six different organisms and find that they offer empirical evidence that
both theories may in part be correct. |
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Keywords: | Intron-early Intron-late Mixture model |
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