We have applied concepts from information theory for a comparative analysis ofdonor (gt) and acceptor (ag) splice site regions in the genes of five different or-ganisms by calculating their mutual information content (relative entropy) overa selected block of nucleotides. A similar pattern that the information contentdecreases as the block size increases was observed for both regions in all the organ-isms studied. This result suggests that the information required for splicing mightbe contained in the consensus of ～6-8 nt at both regions. We assume from ourstudy that even though the nucleotides are showing some degrees of conservation inthe flanking regions of the splice sites, certain level of variability is still tolerated,which leads the splicing process to occur normally even if the extent of base pairingis not fully satisfied. We also suggest that this variability can be compensated byrecognizing different splice sites with different spliceosomal factors.
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