- Precursor mRNA
Precursor mRNA (pre-mRNA), also termed heterogeneous nuclear RNA (hnRNA), is an immature single strand of messenger ribonucleic acid (
mRNA ). pre-mRNA is synthesized from aDNA template in thecell nucleus by transcription.Once pre-mRNA has been completely processed, it is termed "mature
messenger RNA ", "mature mRNA", or simply "mRNA".Processing
Eukaryotic pre-mRNA exists only briefly before it is fully processed into mRNA. pre-mRNAs include two different types of segments,
exon s andintron s. Exons are segments that are retained in the final mRNA, while introns are removed in a process called splicing, which is performed by thespliceosome (except for self-splicing introns).Additional processing steps attach modifications to the 5' and 3' ends of the pre-mRNA. These include a
5' cap of 7-methylguanosine and apoly-A tail .When a pre-mRNA strand has been properly processed to an mRNA sequence, it is exported out of the nucleus and eventually translated into a protein – a process accomplished in conjunction with
ribosome s.External links
* [http://www.scienceden.com/mbiology/concepts/rna Scienceden.com RNA Article]
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