Final answer:
RNA interference is not affected by alternative splicing, which enables the production of different protein products from a single gene through the inclusion or exclusion of specific exons.
Step-by-step explanation:
Among the options provided, RNA interference is not affected by the presence of alternative splicing. Alternative splicing is a post-transcriptional mechanism that allows a single gene to code for multiple proteins. During alternative splicing, certain exons of a pre-mRNA are included or excluded, resulting in multiple mRNA variants that produce different protein isoforms. This contributes to organismal complexity, tissue specificity, speciation, and different stages of development. However, RNA interference is a separate post-transcriptional regulation process that involves small non-coding RNAs, which does not directly interact with processes of alternative splicing.
Alternative splicing offers several evolutionary advantages:
- Increases diversity without increasing genome size.
- Allows expression of different gene isoforms in various tissues.
- Creates different gene isoforms during different stages of development.