Intron size and natural selection (original) (raw)

Genetic recombination

Nature volume 401, page 344 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Intron sizes vary widely among different genes and among homologous genes of different species. The distribution of intron sizes may be maintained in a steady state, reflecting the processes of insertion and deletion of gene sequences, or it may be that the distribution is constrained by natural selection1,2,3. If intron size is governed by natural selection, there should be a statistical association between this size and the rate of recombination per map unit of the genome, assuming that natural selection is less effective in genomic regions of low recombination4,5,6. Here we show that larger introns of Drosophila melanogaster occur preferentially in regions of low recombination, which is consistent with large introns having a deleterious effect. The association is significant (_P_=40.001, linear regression), despite the fact that no effort was made to stratify the data by other factors that affect intron size, such as the size of the associated coding region7 or the presence of regulatory sequences inside the intron.

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Figure 1: Association between intron size and recombination rate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
    Antonio Bernardo Carvalho
  2. Institute of Molecular Evolutionary Genetics, 208 Mueller Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 16802, Pennsylvania, USA
    Antonio Bernardo Carvalho & Andrew G. Clark

Authors

  1. Antonio Bernardo Carvalho
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  2. Andrew G. Clark
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Carvalho, A., Clark, A. Intron size and natural selection.Nature 401, 344 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/43827

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