Abstract
Computer-based structural analysis of the ribosomal DNA intergenic spacer (IGS) from the mosquito Aedes albopictus revealed a potential to form strong and extensive secondary structures throughout a 4.7-kilobase (kb) region. The predicted stability of secondary structures was particularly high within a 3.15-kb region containing 17 tandem 201 base-pair subrepeats. Similarly strong secondary structure potential was also found when IGS subrepeats were analyzed from 17 phylogenetically diverse eukaryotes, including vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. Conservation of higher-order structure potential in the IGS region of ribosomal DNA may reflect evolutionary and functional constraints on chromatin organization, transcriptional regulation of the ribosomal RNA genes, and/or transcript processing and stability.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 514-523 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Molecular Evolution |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 1992 |
Keywords
- Chromatin organization
- Intergenic spacer
- Mosquito
- Ribosomal RNA
- Secondary structure