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1: Science. 2005 Nov 25;310(5752):1325-6.
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Vertebrate-type intron-rich genes in the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii.

Raible F, Tessmar-Raible K, Osoegawa K, Wincker P, Jubin C, Balavoine G, Ferrier D, Benes V, de Jong P, Weissenbach J, Bork P, Arendt D.

Developmental Unit, European Molecular Biological Laboratory (EMBL), Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany. raible@embl.de

Previous genome comparisons have suggested that one important trend in vertebrate evolution has been a sharp rise in intron abundance. By using genomic data and expressed sequence tags from the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, we provide direct evidence that about two-thirds of human introns predate the bilaterian radiation but were lost from insect and nematode genomes to a large extent. A comparison of coding exon sequences confirms the ancestral nature of Platynereis and human genes. Thus, the urbilaterian ancestor had complex, intron-rich genes that have been retained in Platynereis and human.

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PMID: 16311335 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]