In the genome, genes that code for protein are often divided into sections called exons, which are separated by spacers called introns. When a region of DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) or ...

This process enables a single gene to produce multiple proteins; over evolutionary timescales, splicing can also change the size and content of genes and proteins, when different exons become included ...

Shown is the splicing pathway. The pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) has exons (blue) and introns (pink). The spliceosome (not shown) was known to catalyze two chemical reactions (black arrows) in a ...

Although the participation of spliceosomes is almost always required for intron removal, a few types of genes have self-splicing RNA introns.

The origins of introns and their evolutionary role remain unclear. In the November 6 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Alexei Fedorov and colleagues describe the use of a computer ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions have discovered that a protein called hnRNPM helps protect the integrity of the process cells use to make proteins. The protein ...