Making (anti)sense of non-coding sequence conservation
David J. Lipman
Nucleic Acids Research
25(18):3580-3583 (Sept 15, 1997)
Abstract
A substantial fraction of vertebrate mRNAs
contain long conserved blocks in their
untranslated regions as well as long blocks
without silent changes in their protein
coding regions. These conserved blocks are
largely comprised of unique sequence
within the genome, leaving us with an
important puzzle regarding their function.
A large body of experimental data shows
that these regions are associated with
regulation of mRNA stability. Combining
this information with the rapidly
accumulating data on endogenous antisense
transcripts, we propose that the conserved
sequences form long perfect duplexes with
antisense transcripts. The formation of such
duplexes may be essential for recognition by
post-transcriptional regulatory systems.
The conservation may then be explained by
selection against the dominant negative
effect of allelic divergence.
