Contribution of the intron retained in the <i>Nxf1</i> gene transcript to the phylogeny of the order <i>Chiroptera</i>

Abstract

This work is devoted to the possibilities of using a specific intron-containing block of the Nxf1 gene in phylogenetic studies. Our attention was drawn to the conservative intron of the Nxf1 (nuclear export factor) gene. This intron is a part of an evolutionarily conserved block formed with flanking 110 bp and 37 bp exons, similar in representatives of various taxonomic groups. This evolutionary conservative block in our previous works was designated cassette intron. The Nxf1 genes are found in all representatives of Opisthokonta, and may be a convenient object for phylogenetic studies. The Nxf1 gene sequences of seventeen representatives of the order Chiroptera obtained from publicly available databases (ensembl, ncbi). Alignment algorithm: MUSCLE. Programs: MEGA-X version 10.1.7, IQTree, Mesquite, MrBayes, and FigTree.v1.4.4. Estimation methods: Maximum Likelihood and Bayes Inference. The use of Nxf1 gene sequences that include only exons or only introns leads to unequal loss of accuracy in establishing evolutionary relationships in comparison with the model based on the complete gene sequence. Sequences involving all exons plus a cassette intron give the same result as the complete Nxf1 gene sequence. The obtained results indicate the importance of the cassette intron in the evolution of the Nxf1 gene of Chiroptera.