Evidence of Limited Structural Organization in Globin Intron Sequences of Messenger RNA

Wayne Dawson[1] (dawson@ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
Kenji Yamamoto[2] (backen@lute.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

[1] Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo
4-6-1 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, Japan
[2] Lab. Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, Bun'in Hospital, Medical School, University of Tokyo
6-28-3 Mejirodai, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112, Japan

Abstract

The structural significance of introns a in b and globin genes were evaluated in terms of the folding (or stacking) free energy of the nascent RNA sequences as obtained from secondary structure calculations. From calculations of the folding free energy of exons and introns, it was found that introns tend to have a more folded (globular) structure compared to the exon counterparts segments. The results suggest that significant biological information is present in all intronic sequences including spliceosome type introns.

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