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AAT Bioquest

What are the functions of introns?

Posted June 22, 2020


Answer

Although introns do not encode protein products, they have very important biological functions, for example:

  • The most important function of introns is that they allow for alternative splicing, making it possible to generate multiple proteins from a single gene.
  • Some introns encode functional RNA molecules through further processing after they are spliced.
  • Introns also play essential roles in gene expression regulation such as nonsense-mediated decay and mRNA export.
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*