ArticlePloS one2008
Longer first introns are a general property of eukaryotic gene structure.
Article in PloS one, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 89 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
89 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The transcriptional trajectories of pluripotency and differentiation comprise genes with antithetical architecture and repetitive-element content.BMC biology · 2021Pooled it
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- Functional characterisation of the 5' UTR of two PEPCs in Suaeda aralocaspica, a halophyte with CPlanta · 2026Article
- Decoding the Avian Missing Gene Mystery: Dot Chromosomes Unmask Extensive Gene Loss and Novel Genetic Instability.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Different mRNAs encoding identical proteins: how and why?Journal of applied genetics · 2026Article
- Arginine, a key amino acid for nitrogen nutrition and metabolism of forest trees.Journal of experimental botany · 2025Review
- Recursive splicing-a mechanism of intron removal with an unexplored role in the largest genomes.Journal of molecular evolution · 2025Review
- The Relevance of G-Quadruplexes in Gene Promoters and the First Introns Associated with Transcriptional Regulation in Breast Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Introns increase gene expression in Caenorhabditis elegans by a mechanism that must be at least partly different than in plants.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Systematic revelation and meditation on the significance of long exons using representative eukaryotic genomes.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Global identification of mammalian host and nested gene pairs reveal tissue-specific transcriptional interplay.Genome research · 2024Article
- Genes divided according to the relative position of the longest intron show increased representation in different KEGG pathways.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Article
- Deep learning the cis-regulatory code for gene expression in selected model plants.Nature communications · 2024Article
- A super minigene with a short promoter and truncated introns recapitulates essential features of transcription and splicing regulation of the SMN1 and SMN2 genes.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Parallel gene size and isoform expansion of ancient neuronal genes.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- A full-body transcription factor expression atlas with completely resolved cell identities in C. elegans.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Bioinformatics Analysis ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Aberrant DNA Methylation, Expression, and Occurrence of Transcript Variants of the ABC TransporterCells · 2023Article
- Motif conservation, stability, and host gene expression are the main drivers of snoRNA expression across vertebrates.Genome research · 2023Article
29 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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2 authors.
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Abstract
While many properties of eukaryotic gene structure are well characterized, differences in the form and function of introns that occur at different positions within a transcript are less well understood. In particular, the dynamics of intron length variation with respect to intron position has received relatively little attention. This study analyzes all available data on intron lengths in GenBank and finds a significant trend of increased length in first introns throughout a wide range of species. This trend was found to be even stronger when using high-confidence gene annotation data for three model organisms (Arabidopsis thaliana, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Drosophila melanogaster) which show that the first intron in the 5' UTR is--on average--significantly longer than all downstream introns within a gene. A partial explanation for increased first intron length in A. thaliana is suggested by the increased frequency of certain motifs that are present in first introns. The phenomenon of longer first introns can potentially be used to improve gene prediction software and also to detect errors in existing gene annotations.
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