Acta Univ Latv (2006) 710: 155–158

Determination of the human epidermial growth factor precursor hEGFP gene repeat unit size by quantization of exon dimensions

Abstract

A new method for determination of eventual regularity and periodicity of contemporary gene exon rows is suggested. The essence of this method lies in the common internal regularity of gene parameters measured by the number of nucleotides (nt) – mainly of gene intron coordinates and exon lengths (or dimensions). For this purpose it is necessary to calculate the prime number multipliers of all these gene parameters, to find a set of common ones, and, finally, to calculate the product of the set of revealed common multipliers. The obtained product shows the potential size (nt) of the gene repeat unit (or gene quantum). Here we demonstrate that the potential size of gene repeats can be determined using only exon dimensions. The method is used for hEGFP. The first exson of this gene includes a long and unregular 5’-untranslated region. This does not allow to determine the correct reference point for determination of regularity of intron coordinates. The size of the calculated primary repeat unit of hEGFP is 21 nt.