What Can Domesticated Genes Tell Us about the Intron Gain in Mammals?

Domesticated genes, originating from retroelements or from DNA-transposons, constitute an ideal system for testing the hypothesis on the absence of intron gain in mammals. Since single-copy domesticated genes originated from the intronless multicopy transposable elements, the ancestral intron state for domesticated genes is zero. A phylogenomic approach has been used to analyse all domesticated genes in mammals and chordates that originated from the coding parts of transposable elements. A significant amount of intron gain was found only in domesticated genes of placental mammals, where more than 70 cases were identified. De novo gained introns show clear positional bias, since they are distributed mainly in 5′ UTR and coding regions, while 3′ UTR introns are very rare. In the coding regions of some domesticated genes up to 8 de novo gained introns have been found. Surprisingly, the majority of intron gains have occurred in the ancestor of placental mammals. Domesticated genes could constitute an excellent system on which to analyse the mechanisms of intron gain. This paper summarizes the current understanding of intron gain in mammals.