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AAT Bioquest

What are the types of introns?

Posted June 22, 2020


Answer

There are at least four distinct types of introns:

  • Group I introns: They are large self-splicing ribozymes that can catalyze their own excision from mRNA, tRNA and rRNA precursors. The secondary structure of group I introns has a nine-looped stem, which is required for splicing.
  • Group II Introns: They are also self-splicing ribozymes that are found in rRNA, tRNA and mRNA, but they cut themselves differently than group I introns. Besides, the splicing of group II Introns involves the formation of a lariat structure.
  • Nuclear pre-mRNA Introns: They are found in the nucleus in protein-coding genes that are removed by spliceosomes.
  • Transfer RNA introns: They are found in tRNA genes and need proteins (enzymes) to be removed.
Additional resources

6-ROX glycine *25 uM fluorescence reference solution for PCR reactions*

Perdew, G. H., Heuvel, J. P. V., & Peters, J. M. (2008). Regulation of gene expression. Springer Science & Business Media.

Lodish, H., Berk, A., Kaiser, C. A., Krieger, M., Scott, M. P., Bretscher, A., ... & Matsudaira, P. (2008). Molecular cell biology. Macmillan.

Helixyte™ Green *10,000X Aqueous PCR Solution*

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