Question

Introns can remain at a corresponding position in a eukaryotic gene for long periods of evolutionary time.

(a) True

(b) False

This question was addressed to me during an interview.

This intriguing question originated from Genome Anatomy in chapter Collecting & Storing Sequences in Laboratory of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Right option is (a) True

To explain: The origin of introns in eukaryotic genes is not understood but has been accounted for by two models. The “introns-early” view proposes that introns were used to assemble the first genes from sets of ancient conserved exons, whereas the “introns-late” view proposes that introns broke up previously continuous genes by inserting into them.