The non-random distribution of intronless human genes across molecular function categories.

It has been proposed that one function of introns is to coordinate expression across/within networks of related genes. This same hypothesis also predicts that intronless genes will not be uniformly distributed among the functional categories of human genes, but will be found most frequently in those categories that have less need to communicate changes in their expression. Statistical analysis demonstrates significant clustering of single exon genes among those with binding or signal transduction/receptor activities and fewer than expected among those with catalytic function.