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MBE Advance Access originally published online on March 20, 2007
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(5):1140-1148; doi:10.1093/molbev/msm045
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

Evolutionary Conservation of UTR Intron Boundaries in Cryptococcus

Scott William Roy*, David Penny* and Daniel E. Neafsey{dagger}

* Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
{dagger} Microbial Analysis Group, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University

E-mail: scottwroy{at}gmail.com.

Accepted for publication February 16, 2007.

Despite significant progress, the general functional and evolutionary significance of the untranslated regions (UTRs) of eukaryotic transcripts remain mysterious. Particularly mysterious is the common occurrence of spliceosomal introns in transcript UTRs because UTR splicing is not necessary for restoration of transcript coding sequence. In general, it is not known to what extent such splicing performs an important function or merely represents spliceosomal "noise." We conducted the first analysis of evolutionary conservation of UTR splicing. Among 4 species from Cryptococcus neoformans species complex, we find high levels of conservation of UTR intron boundary sequences, strongly suggesting that UTR intron splicing is conserved by purifying selection. We estimate that 50–90% of splice boundaries are maintained by selection. Donor site sequences are more highly conserved than acceptor sequences, and splicing boundaries are more conserved in 5' UTRs than in 3' UTRs. In addition, we report a variety of differences between patterns of UTR splicing in Cryptococcus and corresponding patterns in animals and plants. These results focus attention on the functional roles of eukaryotic UTRs and deepen the mystery of UTR intron splicing.

Key Words: untranslated regions • genome evolution • purifying selection

Aoife McLysaght, Associate Editor


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