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Related Experiment Videos

Origin of genes

W Gilbert1, S J de Souza, M Long

  • 1Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Biological Laboratories, Harvard University, 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|July 22, 1997
PubMed
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The Exon Theory of Genes suggests early genes formed from exons. Testing this on ancient proteins confirms that introns correlate with specific protein structures, supporting the exon shuffling hypothesis.

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Molecular genetics
  • Bioinformatics

Background:

  • The origin of genes and introns is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology.
  • Exon theory proposes that introns and exons played a role in early gene evolution.
  • Intron phases and exon-protein structure correlations are key predictions of this hypothesis.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the hypothesis that early genes were assembled from exons (exon shuffling).
  • To investigate the correlation between intron phases and exon lengths in codons.
  • To examine the relationship between exons and compact polypeptide chain regions.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of ancient conserved proteins (prokaryotic genes lacking introns, eukaryotic homologs with introns).

Related Experiment Videos

  • Statistical testing of intron phase correlations.
  • Correlation analysis between exon boundaries and protein structural features.

    • Main Results:

    • Intron phases show significant correlation, supporting the integer codon number prediction.
    • Exons are statistically correlated with compact protein regions of specific lengths (15, 22, or 30 amino acids).
    • These findings hold for ancient conserved proteins.

    Conclusions:

    • The study provides strong statistical support for the Exon Theory of Genes.
    • Introns are linked to conserved, compact protein structural modules.
    • Exon shuffling is a plausible mechanism for early gene assembly.