Research

Intron Evolution and Information processing in the DNA polymerase α gene in spirotrichous ciliates: A hypothesis for interconversion between DNA and RNA deletion

Wei-Jen Chang^1,3 , Victoria M Addis¹ , Anya J Li¹ , Elin Axelsson² , David H Ardell² and Laura F Landweber¹

¹  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA

²  Linnaeus Centre for Bioinformatics, Uppsala University, Box 598, SE 751 24 Uppsala Sweden

³  Department of Biology, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 13323, USA

author email corresponding author email

Biology Direct 2007, 2:6doi:10.1186/1745-6150-2-6

Published:	1 February 2007

Abstract

Background

The somatic DNA molecules of spirotrichous ciliates are present as linear chromosomes containing mostly single-gene coding sequences with short 5' and 3' flanking regions. Only a few conserved motifs have been found in the flanking DNA. Motifs that may play roles in promoting and/or regulating transcription have not been consistently detected. Moreover, comparing subtelomeric regions of 1,356 end-sequenced somatic chromosomes failed to identify more putatively conserved motifs.

Results

We sequenced and compared DNA and RNA versions of the DNA polymerase α (pol α) gene from nine diverged spirotrichous ciliates. We identified a G-C rich motif aaTACCGC(G/C/T) upstream from transcription start sites in all nine pol α orthologs. Furthermore, we consistently found likely polyadenylation signals, similar to the eukaryotic consensus AAUAAA, within 35 nt upstream of the polyadenylation sites. Numbers of introns differed among orthologs, suggesting independent gain or loss of some introns during the evolution of this gene. Finally, we discuss the occurrence of short direct repeats flanking some introns in the DNA pol α genes. These introns flanked by direct repeats resemble a class of DNA sequences called internal eliminated sequences (IES) that are deleted from ciliate chromosomes during development.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that conserved motifs are present at both 5' and 3' untranscribed regions of the DNA pol α genes in nine spirotrichous ciliates. We also show that several independent gains and losses of introns in the DNA pol α genes have occurred in the spirotrichous ciliate lineage. Finally, our statistical results suggest that proven introns might also function in an IES removal pathway. This could strengthen a recent hypothesis that introns evolve into IESs, explaining the scarcity of introns in spirotrichs. Alternatively, the analysis suggests that ciliates might occasionally use intron splicing to correct, at the RNA level, failures in IES excision during developmental DNA elimination.

Reviewers

This article was reviewed by Dr. Alexei Fedorov (referred by Dr. Manyuan Long), Dr. Martin A. Huynen and Dr. John M. Logsdon.