Biopolymers and cell. 2005; 21 (6): 548 - 558

Comparative analysis of structural organization of cytoplasmic tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase genes of eukaryotes

K. A. Odynets, A. I. Kornelyuk

A comparative bioinformational analysis has been performed for the structure of cytoplasmic tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrRS) genes from 54 eukaryotic organisms from different taxones. In some cases, the identification of the genes and their exons was verified by comparison with the experimental cDNA and EST sequences. The comparison of exon-intron structures shows that TyrRS genes of Chordata (16 species) have much more exons (13─14) than genes of Insecta (2─7 exons), yeasts and Protozoa (1─8 exons). The intron lengths increase intensively during the evolution due to integration of genomic repeats. The positions of some introns are conservative that marks their earlier integration into the gene of common ancestor of Chordata and Insecta. The TyrRS gene of human is analyzed in detail for alternative splicing mRNAs and genomic repeats.

Key words: tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase, gene, exon-intron structure, evolution, databases.