Splicing pathway (IMAGE)

University of California - Santa Cruz

Splicing pathway

Caption

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 two-step process (green arrows labeled 1 and 2) that splice the exons together and removes the intron as a lariat. This study demonstrates that after splicing is finished, the spliceosome is still active and can convert the lariat intron into a circle using a third reaction (green arrow 3) marked by an asterix.

Credit

Image by Manuel Ares, UC Santa Cruz

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