Assessing the adaptive significance of alternative gene splicing using a phylogenetic approach

遗传信息以DNA的形式存储在细胞中，细胞不能直接访问。相反，DNA信息在被用来指导细胞功能之前，要经历广泛的、多步骤的处理。这些过程之一，mRNA的选择性剪接，不仅传递遗传信息，而且通过从同一基因产生多个选择性遗传信息来增强遗传信息。细胞扩展了大量的资源来产生这些替代信息，虽然有些信息对细胞的正常功能和发育至关重要，但其他信息的重要性是一个有争议的话题，因为它们在细胞中的功能尚不清楚。 选择性剪接是一个极其低效的过程，一个错综复杂的调控过程，还是一个强大的进化机制？这些问题的答案对遗传信息如何组织和进化具有重要意义。

Genetic information is stored in the cell in the form of DNA, which the cell cannot access directly. Instead, DNA information undergoes extensive, multi-step processing before it can be acted upon to direct cellular functions. One of these processes, alternative mRNA splicing, not only transmits genetic information but also enhances it by generating multiple alternative genetic messages from the same gene. The cell expands considerable amount of resources to generate these alternative messages and while some are essential for the proper functioning and development of the cell, the significance of others is a subject of great debate, since their function in the cell is unclear. Is alternative splicing an extravagantly inefficient process, an intricately complex regulatory process, or a powerful evolutionary mechanism? The answer to these questions have important implications about how genetic information is organized and evolves.