Effect of exon insertion on the protein-coding region. Data for 45 Alu-containing exons occurring within the protein-coding region are presented in lighter shaded bars. Data of 48 alternatively spliced internal exons from chromosome 22 (Hide et al. 2001), which occur in the protein-coding region, are presented as reference (darker shaded bars). Exons were considered as domain adding if their length was a multiple of three, and there was no in-frame stop codon within them. Exons were considered as causing a premature termination either when they caused a frame-shift or when they presented an in-frame stop codon. Data for alternatively spliced internal exons from chromosome 22 were calculated from Table 2 in Hide et al. (2001).