The role of introns in evolution

Abstract

What are the roles of ‘classical’ introns in the evolution of nuclear genes, and what was the origin of these introns? Exon shuffling has been important in the evolution of cell surface and extracellular proteins, but the evidence for it in respect of intracellular proteins is weak. Intron distributions imply that some introns have been removed while others have been inserted in the course of evolution; ancestral patterns of introns may thus have been obscured. Recent evidence on the self‐splicing and reverse‐splicing abilities of Group II introns supports the hypothesis that these could have been the ancestors of classical introns.