Case Study on the Pattern Change in Arabidopsis thaliana Intron Sequences

A large portion in eukaryotic genomes is introns buttheir function is not yet fully elucidated. The aims of this studyare to employ the generalized Bernoulli modeling approach toestimate the change points based on GC distribution in intronsequences of Arabidopsis thaliana and to investigate whetherthere is any correlation between gene properties (the geneexpression level and the protein function) and these intronpattern changes. The influence of the intron length and thenumber of GC on the intron sequence pattern changes isdemonstrated. Among the random sampled intron sequences,10.71% have been identified to have pattern changes. Thenumber of GC and the intron length can be considered mainfactors influencing the intron pattern change. Short intronswith high GC number are likely to have higher chance to havepattern changes detected on their sequences. Little influence ofgene properties on the pattern change is found in this study.The pattern changes identified in this study may benefit thefurther investigation on intron functionality