Introns in Biological News

Yale scientists visualize the machinery of mRNA splicing

... her research team into the nature of group II introns , a particular type of intron within gene ... removal during the maturation of RNA. Group II introns are found throughout nature, in all forms of ... applications of the work, Pyle said, Group II introns hold promise in the future as agents of gene ...

CSHL scientists clarify editing error underlying genetic neurodegenerative disease

... the raw or unedited RNA copy of DNA includes excess RNA segments called introns that need to be edited out in order for the RNA's message to be functional. Once the introns are removed, the remaining segments -- called exons -- are pasted ...

Researchers develop new self-training gene prediction program for fungi

... and non-coding sequences (introns and intergenic regions). Most introns start from the dinucleotide guanine-thymine (abbreviated GT) and end with ... significant variability in genome size, gene number and average number of introns per gene. The results showed that by including branch site information in ...

Scientists find a fingerprint of evolution across the human genome

... splicing Previous researchers assumed that mutations in the middle of introns do not affect the final protein, so they simply accumulate. In the new ... even in these regions of the genome. Although the selection is weak, introns are not neutral, in their effect on survival, says CSHL professor Michael ...

Genome of marine organism tells of humans' unicellular ancestors

... 25,000 genes. Interestingly, the choanoflagellate has nearly as many introns - non-coding regions once referred to as "junk" DNA - in its genes as humans do in their genes, and often in the same spots. introns have to be snipped out before a gene can be used as a blueprint for a ...

Stowers Institute's Baumann Lab identifies key step in maturation pathway of telomerase

... that 3' end processing for telomerase RNA uses a fundamentally different and novel pathway." "We demonstrate that the machinery that removes introns from messenger RNAs also functions in generating the mature 3' end of the telomerase RNA subunit," said Jessica Box, Research Technician I and ...

Trichoplax genome sequenced -- 'rosetta stone' for understanding evolution

... Earlier sequencing work showed that the mitochondrial genome of Trichoplax is over twice the size of those found in most animals with genes, introns and spacer sequences like the most primitive organisms. However, size is not all that matters. DNA sequences that organisms share in common ...

Evolution of fruit size in tomato

... the mutation consisted of an insertion in the first intron, which is a non-coding sequence embedded within the protein coding sequence. Although introns are not part of a gene's protein code and are removed from the RNA sequence before translation into proteins, they are nevertheless structurally and ...

The earliest animals had human-like genes

... contain extra bits of DNA sequence, called introns ?information which has to be removed as cells create new molecules. The number of introns in genes, however, varies greatly among animals. While humans have many introns in their genes, common animal models such as ...

Reversal of role for a viral protein associated with the development of lymphoma

... non-coding elements (introns). During processing, introns are snipped out and exons pasted together to form ... how a cell's molecular machinery eliminates long introns without making errors has puzzled scientists for ... called recursive splicing, removes long introns by steadily paring them down in a predictable ...

Carnegie Mellon University research reveals how cells process large genes

... non-coding elements (introns). During processing, introns are snipped out and exons pasted together to form ... how a cell's molecular machinery eliminates long introns without making errors has puzzled scientists for ... called recursive splicing, removes long introns by steadily paring them down in a predictable ...

Molecular machine may lead to new drugs to combat human diseases

... in its work cycle. When frozen, crystallized introns reveal their structure and the sites at which ... Biology. "In terms of human health, Group I introns are interesting because they cause their own ... a functional gene," Golden said. "We can design introns and re-engineer them so they will do this to RNA ...

RNA splicing occurs in nerve-cell dendrites

... both exons (mature mRNA regions destined to code for proteins) and introns (non-coding regions). mRNA splicing works by cutting out introns and merging together the remaining exon pieces, resulting in an mRNA ...

Researchers find missing genes of ancient organism

... gene transcripts during the process of tRNA maturation. The known tRNA introns in organisms like yeast, however, appear to have no function. Therefore, modern tRNA introns might be remnants of an old essential process of tRNA biosynthesis. ...

Exploring the dark matter of the genome

... organized quite differently from genes in euchromatin, with much longer gaps (introns) between the coding sections of the gene (exons); unlike the introns in euchromatic genes, these long gaps consisted almost entirely of repeating sequences derived from disabled transposons. The evidence suggests that ...

Stability of mRNA/DNA and DNA/DNA duplexes modulates mRNA transcription

... the genus Saccharomyces. The researchers found that genes of these organisms are more stable than intergenic regions near their 3?end. In addition, introns (internal non-coding regions in genes) are significantly less stable than exons (coding sequences in genes), suggesting that stable sense duplexes ...

Tandem transcripts team together

... In addition, they discovered that the intergenic sequences of TICs were processed via the same standard eukaryotic splicing machinery that removes introns from RNA transcripts. Following a similar whole-genome survey of splicing events, Guigó's laboratory focused on the ENCODE regions, a set of DNA ...

Study provides insight into cellular defenses against genetic mutation

... Matter of Spacing Immature mRNA is made of both "must-read" pieces of RNA called exons that code for the building of proteins, and pieces called introns that do not code for proteins. For mRNA to mature, it must be cut and pasted by cellular machines that re-assemble end to end only exons in the final ...

Breakthrough Microarray-based Technology for the Study of Cancer

... a new realm of resolution, sensitivity, and reproducibility that allows reliable detection of alterations at the scale of individual genes and even introns and exons. This advancement, along with the possibility it provides to correlate genomic copy alterations with mRNA abundance and protein abundance, ...