Complete, precise, and innocuous loss of multiple introns in the currently intronless, active cathepsin L-like genes, and inference from this event

Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2006 Mar;38(3):685-96. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2005.09.005. Epub 2005 Nov 8.

Abstract

Retrotransposition typically generates pseudogenes. Here we demonstrate a different fate of the retro-processed genes through a novel mechanism in which the retro-processed genes still maintain their sequence intactness and the original functions. We show that the shrimp cathepsin L (CatL) gene MeCatL has lost all of its five introns. Also, ProEPB, the ancestor of the CatL-like barley EPBs and rice REP1, has lost all of its three introns. The multiple introns in a gene might have been eliminated simultaneously and precisely at the original locus for the CatL-like genes of shrimp, barley, rice, Drosophila, and Theileria. We reason that retrotransposition is not responsible for the generation of a processed active intronless (PAI) gene when the gene product retains its sequence intactness and its original function. We propose that double-strand-break repair (DSBR) machinery might play a role in cDNA-mediated homologous recombination (cDMHR) that causes the loss of introns. The cDMHR/DSBR pathway is probably a fundamental mechanism for intron loss in PAI genes and in some asymmetric-intron genes.

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Cathepsin L
  • Cathepsins / chemistry
  • Cathepsins / genetics*
  • Crustacea / enzymology
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases / chemistry
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases / genetics*
  • DNA Damage
  • DNA Repair
  • Gene Deletion*
  • Hordeum / enzymology
  • Introns*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Oryza / enzymology
  • Phylogeny
  • Recombination, Genetic
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid

Substances

  • Cathepsins
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases
  • Cathepsin L