Exons, introns and DNA thermodynamics

Abstract

The genes of eukaryotes are characterized by protein coding fragments, the exons, interrupted by introns, i.e. stretches of DNA which do not carry any useful information for the protein synthesis. We have analyzed the melting behavior of randomly selected human cDNA sequences obtained from the genomic DNA by removing all introns. A clear correspondence is observed between exons and melting domains. This finding may provide new insights in the physical mechanisms underlying the evolution of genes.

arXiv comment4 pages, 8 figures - Final version as published. See also Phys. Rev. Focus 15, story 17

References in corpus (2)

• Reparametrizing loop entropy weights: Effect on DNA melting curves
• Pause Point Spectra in DNA Constant-Force Unzipping

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