Skip Navigation



MBE Advance Access published online on August 20, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn181
This Article
Right arrow Advance Access manuscript (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
25/11/2431    most recent
msn181v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Barberan-Soler, S.
Right arrow Articles by Zahler, A. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Barberan-Soler, S.
Right arrow Articles by Zahler, A. M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. 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 Article

Alternative splicing and the steady-state ratios of mRNA isoforms generated by it are under strong stabilizing selection in C. elegans

Sergio Barberan-Soler and Alan M. Zahler*

Department of MCD Biology and Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, University of California, Santa Cruz

* Corresponding Author: Alan M. Zahler, Professor, Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology and Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, Sinsheimer Laboratories, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064. zahler{at}biology.ucsc.edu. Tel 831-459-5131. Fax 831-459-3139.

Received for publication April 24, 2008. Revision received July 16, 2008. Accepted for publication August 16, 2008.

Evolutionary studies indicate that a high proportion of alternative splicing events are species-specific; just 28% of minor-form alternatively spliced exons are conserved between mice and humans. We employed a splicing-sensitive microarray to study the evolution of allele-specific alternative splicing in nematodes. We compared splicing levels among five distinct C. elegans lines. Our results indicate that alternative splicing is less variable between natural isolates from England, Hawaii and Australia, than when compared to mutation accumulation lines (6% vs. 21% respectively vary compared to N2). This suggests that strong stabilizing selection shapes the evolution of the ratios of isoforms generated by alternative splicing in C. elegans. When we analyzed some of the splicing changes between the natural isolates, we found examples of changes in both cis and trans that lead to alterations in gene-specific alternative splicing. This indicates that both these mechanisms for changing alternative splicing are employed along the path towards speciation in nematodes.

Key Words: alternative-splicing • evolution • microarrays


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 RNAHome page
S. Barberan-Soler, N. J. Lambert, and A. M. Zahler
Global analysis of alternative splicing uncovers developmental regulation of nonsense-mediated decay in C. elegans
RNA, September 1, 2009; 15(9): 1652 - 1660.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.