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Five identical intron positions in ancient duplicated genes of eubacterial origin

Nature volume 367, pages 387–389 (1994)Cite this article

Abstract

IN 1985 Cornish-Bowden wrote "although there is now much to suggest that introns are an ancient relic of primordial genes, convincing proof must await the discovery of clearly corresponding intron arrangements in genes that arose by duplication before the separation of prokaryotes and eukaryotes"1. Genes for chloroplast and cytosolic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases of eukaryotes are descendants of an ancient gene family that existed in the common ancestor of extant eubacteria. During eukaryotic evolution, both genes were transferred to the nucleus from the antecedents of present-day chloroplasts and mitochondria, respectively2–5. Here we report the discovery of five spliceosomal introns at positions that are precisely conserved between nuclear genes for this chloroplast/cytosol enzyme pair. These data provide strong evidence in favour of the 'introns early' hypothesis, which proposes that introns were present in the earliest cells, consistent with the idea that introns facilitated the assembly of primordial genes by accelerating the rate of exon shuffling6–13.

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Author notes

  1. De-Xing Zhang

    Present address: School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 71J, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Genetik, Universität Braunschweig, Postfach 3329, D-38023, Braunschweig, Germany

    Ralf Kersanach, Henner Brinkmann, Marie-Françoise Liaud, De-Xing Zhang, William Martin & Rüdiger Cerff

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  6. Rüdiger Cerff
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Kersanach, R., Brinkmann, H., Liaud, MF. et al. Five identical intron positions in ancient duplicated genes of eubacterial origin. Nature 367, 387–389 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/367387a0

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