The evolutionary landscape of intergenic trans-splicing events in insects

Yimeng Kong, Hongxia Zhou, Yao Yu, Longxian Chen, Pei Hao () and Xuan Li ()
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Yimeng Kong: Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hongxia Zhou: Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yao Yu: Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Longxian Chen: Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pei Hao: Key Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Immunology, Institute Pasteur of Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xuan Li: Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract To explore the landscape of intergenic trans-splicing events and characterize their functions and evolutionary dynamics, we conduct a mega-data study of a phylogeny containing eight species across five orders of class Insecta, a model system spanning 400 million years of evolution. A total of 1,627 trans-splicing events involving 2,199 genes are identified, accounting for 1.58% of the total genes. Homology analysis reveals that mod(mdg4)-like trans-splicing is the only conserved event that is consistently observed in multiple species across two orders, which represents a unique case of functional diversification involving trans-splicing. Thus, evolutionarily its potential for generating proteins with novel function is not broadly utilized by insects. Furthermore, 146 non-mod trans-spliced transcripts are found to resemble canonical genes from different species. Trans-splicing preserving the function of ‘breakup’ genes may serve as a general mechanism for relaxing the constraints on gene structure, with profound implications for the evolution of genes and genomes.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9734

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