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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Hand Dissection of Caenorhabditis elegans Intestines
Published on: September 13, 2022
On the paucity of duplicated genes in Caenorhabditis elegans operons
Andre R O Cavalcanti1, Nicholas A Stover, Laura F Landweber
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. aroc@pomona.edu
Abstract:
Spliced leader trans-splicing is an mRNA maturation process used by a small set of eukaryotes, including the nematode C. elegans, to cap the downstream genes of operons. We analyzed the frequency of duplication of operonic genes in C. elegans and confirmed that they are duplicated less often in the genome than monocistronic genes. Because operons account for about 15% of the genes in C. elegans, this lower duplication frequency might place a large constraint on the plasticity of the genome. Further analyses suggest that this paucity of duplicated genes results from operon organization hindering specific types of gene duplication.
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