Abstract
In vertebrates the coding sequences of the mitochondrial carrier (MC) genes are highly conserved; in these genes, relatively few intronic sequences are well conserved in chicken, mouse and human, and many more in mouse and human. In the chicken/mouse/human MC intronic alignments encompassing about 13,700 nucleotides, 77.8% of the homotopic nucleotides are identical in all three species. The non-identical nucleotides form three distinct subpopulations of nucleotides: chicken-specific, mouse-specific and human-specific. The nucleotide compositions of the chicken-specific and human-specific subpopulations do not differ significantly from each other and from the identical-nucleotide subpopulation. In contrast, the mouse-specific subpopulation is remarkably different from the chicken-specific and human-specific ones, being richer in C and G and poorer in A and T. A similar analysis was carried out for mouse/human MC intronic alignments encompassing about 56,800 nucleotides, and 74.9% of the homotopic nucleotides were found to be identical in the two species. Also in this case the human-specific subpopulation appears to be markedly similar to the mouse/human identical-nucleotide subpopulation, whereas the mouse-specific subpopulation is richer in C and G and poorer in A and T. These results can be interpreted as indicating that the human and chicken intronic sequences of the MC genes investigated largely retain the characteristics of the bird/mammal ancestor sequence, while the mouse intronic sequences diverge from those of the rodent/primate ancestor much more than the human sequences do. Remarkably, the bird/mammal and rodent/primate ancestors probably shared a significant amount of homotopic nucleotides of the investigated intronic sequences.
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Dedicated to professor Ennio Pannese, outstanding neurocytologist and member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
This paper belongs to a series of peer-reviewed contributions coordinated by Guest Editor Ferdinando Palmieri on the theme “Current topics in biology”.
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Cianciulli, A., Calvello, R., Mitolo, V. et al. Intron evolution of chicken, mouse, and human mitochondrial carrier genes. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 29, 437–442 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-018-0713-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-018-0713-8