Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow Print PDF (231K) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (17)
Right arrow Commercial Re-use Guidelines
for Open Access NAR Content
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by van Lin, L. H. M.
Right arrow Articles by Waters, A. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by van Lin, L. H. M.
Right arrow Articles by Waters, A. P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Nucleic Acids Research, 2001, Vol. 29, No. 10 2059-2068
© 2001 Oxford University Press

Interspecies conservation of gene order and intron–exon structure in a genomic locus of high gene density and complexity in Plasmodium

Leonard H. M. van Lin, Tomasino Pace1, Chris J. Janse, Cecilia Birago1, Jai Ramesar, Leonardo Picci1, Marta Ponzi1 and Andrew P. Waters*

Department of Parasitology, Leiden University Medical Centre, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands and 1Laboratorio di Biologia Cellulare, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

A 13.6 kb contig of chromosome 5 of Plasmodium berghei, a rodent malaria parasite, has been sequenced and analysed for its coding potential. Assembly and comparison of this genomic locus with the orthologous locus on chromosome 10 of the human malaria Plasmodium falciparum revealed an unexpectedly high level of conservation of the gene organisation and complexity, only partially predicted by current gene-finder algorithms. Adjacent putative genes, transcribed from complementary strands, overlap in their untranslated regions, introns and exons, resulting in a tight clustering of both regulatory and coding sequences, which is unprecedented for genome organisation of Plasmodium. In total, six putative genes were identified, three of which are transcribed in gametocytes, the precursor cells of gametes. At least in the case of two multiple exon genes, alternative splicing and alternative transcription initiation sites contribute to a flexible use of the dense information content of this locus. The data of the small sample presented here indicate the value of a comparative approach for Plasmodium to elucidate structure, organisation and gene content of complex genomic loci and emphasise the need to integrate biological data of all Plasmodium species into the P.falciparum genome database and associated projects such as PlasmodB to further improve their annotation.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +31 71 5265069; Fax: +31 71 5266907; Email: waters{at}lumc.nl The authors wish it to be known that, in their opinion, the first two authors should be regarded as joint First Authors


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
S. Jongwutiwes, C. Putaporntip, R. Friedman, and A. L. Hughes
The Extent of Nucleotide Polymorphism is Highly Variable Across a 3-kb Region on Plasmodium falciparum Chromosome 2
Mol. Biol. Evol., September 1, 2002; 19(9): 1585 - 1590.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.