... 2002introns in the evolutionary pathway to c-type genes, butrather the acquisition of an interdomain intron in the evolution of c-crystallins, and of both interdomain andintermotif introns in the evolution ... genes, the sequencecoding for the interdomain linker peptide is interrupted byan ÔinterdomainÕ intron. In the b-type crystallin genes,ÔintermotifÕ introns are also present. Thus in b-type genes,each ... crystallins [7,25,44–51]. The burying of the hydrophobic patches at the interdo-main interfaces, intramolecular in the c-type structure,intermolecular in the b-type, has been early recognized asthe...