Plant intron sequences: evidence for distinct groups of introns

In vivo and in vitro RNA splicing experiments have demonstrated that the intron splicing machineries are not interchangeable in all organisms. These differences have prevented the efficient in vivo expression of monocot genes containing introns in dicot plants and the in vitro excision of some plant introns in HeLa cell in vitro splicing extracts. We have analyzed plant introns for sequence differences which potentially account for the functional splicing differences. Three classes of plant introns can be differentiated by the purine or pyrimidine-richness of sequences upstream from the 3' splice site. The frequency of these three types of introns in monocots and dicots varies significantly. The degree of variability in the 5' and 3' intron boundaries is evaluated for each of these classes in monocots and dicots. The 5' splice site consensus sequences developed for the monocot and dicot introns differ in their ability to base pair with conserved nucleotides present at the 5' end of many U1 snRNAs.