Konings D A, Hogeweg P, Hesper B
Bioinformatica, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Mol Biol Evol. 1987 May;4(3):300-14. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040441.
In this paper we investigate and compare (evolutionary) patterns in the primary and secondary structure of four homologous E1a mRNAs of the adenovirus. Our main results are as follows: (1) The similarity of the coding regions of the mRNA sequences reflects both similarity in function (i.e., oncogenicity) and evolutionary divergence. (2) The similarity of the leader and the trailer regions reflects host specificity (i.e., human or simian) and must therefore arise from convergence. (3) Minimal energy foldings of the mRNAs show similar secondary structures (in particular around the splice sites). The conservation of pre-mRNA secondary structure shows that mRNAs are subject to selection constraints in addition to those associated with proteins. (4) The conserved secondary (helical) structures consist of nonhomologous subsequences, i.e., shifts have occurred. The observed shifts near the splice sites seem to be the simplest way of dealing with the dual constraints.
在本文中，我们研究并比较了腺病毒四种同源E1a mRNA的一级和二级结构中的（进化）模式。我们的主要结果如下：（1）mRNA序列编码区的相似性既反映了功能上的相似性（即致癌性），也反映了进化分歧。（2）前导区和尾随区的相似性反映了宿主特异性（即人类或猿猴），因此必然源于趋同现象。（3）mRNA的最小能量折叠显示出相似的二级结构（特别是在剪接位点周围）。前体mRNA二级结构的保守性表明，mRNA除了受到与蛋白质相关的选择限制外，还受到其他选择限制。（4）保守的二级（螺旋）结构由非同源子序列组成，即发生了移位。在剪接位点附近观察到的移位似乎是应对双重限制的最简单方式。
