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The human Alu SINE sequences ‐ is there a role for selection in their evolution?
Author(s) -
Brookfield John F. Y.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.950161104
Subject(s) - alu element , sine , sequence (biology) , biology , genetics , genome , selection (genetic algorithm) , human genome , conserved sequence , evolutionary biology , computational biology , dna sequencing , dna , repeated sequence , rna , negative selection , consensus sequence , gene , base sequence , mathematics , computer science , geometry , artificial intelligence
The Alu sequence is a SINE (Short INterspersed Element) that is abundant in the human genome. A new analysis (1) reveals an unexpected conservation of some bases in the DNA sequence of the element. The bases involved include those forming an RNA polymerase III promoter. An unresolved question is whether this conservation results from selection for transposability. This, in turn, is related to the larger question of the evolutionary relationship between members of the Alu sequence family.