@article {Simmons2015,
	title = {Intron invasions trace algal speciation and reveal nearly identical Arctic and Antarctic Micromonas populations.},
	journal = {Molecular biology and evolution},
	year = {2015},
	note = {tex.mendeley-tags: rcc},
	month = {may},
	abstract = {Spliceosomal introns are a hallmark of eukaryotic genes that are hypothesized to play important roles in genome evolution but have poorly understood origins. Although most introns lack sequence homology to each other, recently new families of spliceosomal introns that are repeated hundreds of times in individual genomes have been discovered in a few organisms. The prevalence and conservation of these introner elements (IEs) or introner-like elements (ILEs) in other taxa, as well as their evolutionary relationships to regular spliceosomal introns, are still unknown. Here, we systematically investigate introns in the widespread marine green alga Micromonas and report new families of IEs, numerous intron presence-absence polymorphisms, and potential intron insertion hot-spots. The new families enabled identification of conserved IE secondary structure features and establishment of a novel general model for repetitive intron proliferation across genomes. Despite shared secondary structure, the IE families from each Micromonas lineage bear no obvious sequence similarity to those in the other lineages, suggesting their appearance is intimately linked with the process of speciation. Two of the new IE families come from an Arctic culture (Micromonas Clade E2) isolated from a polar region where this alga is increasing in abundance due to climate change. The same two families were detected in metagenomic data from Antarctica - a system where Micromonas has never before been reported. Strikingly high identity between the Arctic isolate and Antarctic coding sequences that flank the IEs suggests connectivity between populations in the two polar systems that we postulate occurs through deep-sea currents. Recovery of Clade E2 sequences in North Atlantic Deep Waters beneath the Gulf Stream supports this hypothesis. Our work illuminates the dynamic relationships between an unusual class of repetitive introns, genome evolution, speciation and global distribution of this sentinel marine alga.},
	keywords = {rcc},
	issn = {1537-1719},
	doi = {10.1093/molbev/msv122},
	url = {http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/long/msv122v1},
	author = {Simmons, Melinda P and Bachy, Charles and Sudek, Sebastian and van Baren, Marijke J and Sudek, Lisa and Ares, Manuel and Worden, Alexandra Z}
}
