Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the location of introns in human (h) and F. rubripes (F) type I-IV genes. Only introns related to the region encoding the central rod domains (sketch of coils 1a, 1b and 2 at the top) are shown. Notice the related but not identical intron patterns of type I, II and III genes (red triangles), which are shared by human and F. rubripes, and the entirely different intron pattern of type IV genes (blue triangles). All seven human type IV genes show the two conserved intron positions, and the NF-H gene has an additional third intron (open triangle) marked by a vertical line. This pattern holds in F. rubripes for six genes (gefiltin, gefiltin like-2, NF-L-like 1, NF-M, NF-H-like and Y), with NF-H resembling human NF-H by the additional intron (open triangle marked by a vertical line). The other three F. rubripes type IV genes have either one (NF-L-like 2; third line from bottom) or two (gefiltin-like-1; second line from bottom) novel intron positions (black triangles); F. rubripes gene X (bottom line) has the two type IV intron positions (blue) and three type I to III intron positions (red) together with three novel intron positions (black).

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