Exons, Introns, and DNA Thermodynamics
- 2 May 2005
- journal article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 94 (17) , 178101
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.94.178101
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 useful information for protein synthesis. We have analyzed the melting behavior of randomly selected human cDNA sequences obtained from genomic DNA by removing all introns. A clear correspondence is observed between exons and melting domains. This finding may provide new insights into the physical mechanisms underlying the evolution of genes.Keywords
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