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Intron and gene size expansion during nervous system evolution.

Matthew J McCoy1,2, Andrew Z Fire3

  • 1Grass Fellowship Program, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, 02543, USA. mjmccoy@stanford.edu.

BMC Genomics
|May 16, 2020
PubMed
Summary

Animal evolution saw gene size increase, especially in neurons. Longest genes, predominantly in nervous systems, expanded through intron gains, suggesting unique neuronal evolutionary pressures.

Keywords:
Gene sizeGenome evolutionIntron sizeLong genesLong intronsNervous system evolution

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Genomics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Animal evolution is marked by gene and genome size expansion.
  • Increased isoform diversity and regulatory complexity accompany this expansion.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between gene size and expression patterns in nervous systems.
  • To understand the mechanisms driving gene size expansion in neuronal tissues.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative genomics analysis across diverse species.
  • Gene expression profiling in vertebrate and invertebrate neuronal tissues.
  • Analysis of gene structure, focusing on intron size and position.

Main Results:

  • The longest genes are significantly enriched in neuronal tissues of both vertebrates and invertebrates.
  • Neuronal gene size expansion is primarily driven by increases in intron size.
  • Intron size expansion shows a positional bias towards the 5' end of genes.

Conclusions:

  • Intron and gene size expansion is a common feature of genes expressed in nervous systems.
  • Unique properties of neurons may drive evolutionary forces favoring gene size expansion.
  • This expansion could relate to tissue-specific functional constraints or the evolution of complex neural gene regulation.