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MBE Advance Access published online on January 15, 2009
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msp006
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© The Author 2009. 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

Similar selective factors affect both between gene and between exon divergence in Drosophila

Wilfried Haerty and Brian Golding

Biology Department, McMaster University

Corresponding author: Brian Golding, phone: 905-525-9140 ext 24829, email: golding{at}mcmaster.ca

Received for publication November 11, 2008. Revision received January 6, 2009. Accepted for publication January 7, 2009.

As a consequence of alternative splicing, a gene's exons will have different frequencies of inclusion into mature mRNA and different patterns of expression. These differences affect their patterns of evolutionary divergence. Using the recently re-annotated genome of D. melanogaster and the genome sequences of four closely related species of the melanogaster subgroup, we investigated the effect of alternative splicing, inclusion level (defined as the number of transcripts an exon is found in) and expression pattern on exon evolution across divergence times ranging from 1 to 12.5 million years ago. Genes undergoing alternative splicing have a broader pattern of expression associated with a lower divergence rate in comparison to genes with a single annotated protein isoform. Within genes undergoing alternative splicing, we report a significant effect of inclusion level on exon evolution, as alternatively spliced exons are less conserved than constitutively spliced exons. More generally, there are significant negative correlations between inclusion level and exon evolutionary rates that can be associated with relaxation of selection. A significant effect of expression pattern on evolution rates is also observed. Overall we found that similar selective factors such as the expression level and the pattern of expression are affecting both gene and exon evolution.

Key Words: alternative splicing • coding exons • rates of evolution • inclusion level • pattern of expression • Drosophila


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