Exons, introns and DNA thermodynamics
Biomolecules
2009-11-10 v2 Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
Abstract
The genes of eukaryotes are characterized by protein coding fragments, the exons, interrupted by introns, i.e. stretches of DNA which do not carry any useful information for the protein synthesis. We have analyzed the melting behavior of randomly selected human cDNA sequences obtained from the genomic DNA by removing all introns. A clear correspondence is observed between exons and melting domains. This finding may provide new insights in the physical mechanisms underlying the evolution of genes.
Cite
@article{arxiv.q-bio/0409034,
title = {Exons, introns and DNA thermodynamics},
author = {Enrico Carlon and Mehdi Lejard Malki and Ralf Blossey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:q-bio/0409034},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 8 figures - Final version as published. See also Phys. Rev. Focus 15, story 17