Gustavo Maroni
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Gene Organization and
Expression in Drosophila Telephone: (919) 962-1343 E-mail: gmaroni@unc.edu Office: 515 Fordham Hall Mailing Address: Associate Professor
(Initial Appointment: 1975) |
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Synopsis The organization of
genetic information in eukaryotes is far from straightforward. The interspersion
of coding and non-coding regions makes genes up to tens of times larger than
they "need" to be if protein coding were the only prerequisite. The
presence of untranslated regions in mature mRNAs and the positioning of
cis-acting enhancers at considerable distances all contribute to expand the
effective size of genes and diminish the apparent informational density of
eukaryotic genomes. The relative size of these non-coding elements is quite
diverse in distantly related eukaryotes and their distribution does not
appear random. Comparing details of gene organization in different groups of
organisms provides clues of the possible adaptive significance of some of
these differences and may suggest mechanistic explanations to relate a
particular type of gene organization to a corresponding functional mode. |
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