Comparative analysis of firefly luciferase genes: Evolution of the intron-exon structure

Comparative analysis of firefly luciferase genes: Evolution of the intron-exon structure Manabu BESSHO-UEHARA, Kaori KONISHI & Yuichi OBA

Abstract

The firefly luciferase gene consists of seven exons interrupted by six introns. Multiple alignment analysis showed that the exon-intron boundaries were completely conserved across subfamilies and between the paralogues (Luc1 and Luc2), except the single report for those of the Chinese and Korean . In this study, we show for the first time that the luciferase gene in from Tsushima Island of Japan has typical exon-intron structure with the same splice site boundaries. Furthermore comparative analysis including the click beetle luciferase and orthologous genes of beetle luciferase in non-luminous insects suggested that the ancestral gene of beetle luciferase consists of seven exons interrupted by short six introns, and the first and the third introns had expanded during the course of evolution in the Elateridae lineage.