G-Quadruplex enrichment analysis reveals their role as intronic regulatory elements in plants

Abstract

G-Quadruplexes, a class of noncanonical but highly stable nucleic acid structures, have the potential to be part of theregulatory mechanism of cells. They can form in the genome where the double-stranded helix is unwound to facilitate formation of aG-quadruplex. The biological significance of these structures is yet to be understood entirely. This work presents a novel approach andinvestigates common characteristics in the distribution of G-quadruplexes relative to genes in plants through analysis of genomes andgene expressions. The results indicate that G-quadruplex distribution has gone through significant changes with the evolution of higherplants and, for the first time, that G-quadruplexes enriched at the beginning of introns may have a regulatory role during transcription.