Identification of the putative prothymosin α homolog in Escherichia coli cells prompted the search for a prothymosin α-coding gene in the E. coli genome. A set of interspersed DNA segments was identified, which match various parts of the human prothymosin α molecule. Their location in the E. coli genome and high degree of similarity with the appropriate regions of the human prothymosin α gene suggest that some kind of trans-splicing should exist in E. coli, which could be responsible for bringing these putative bacterial prothymosin α-coding exons together.
