spliceosome
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A spliceosome is a large ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex found primarily within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells. The spliceosome is assembled from small nuclear RNAs (snRNA) and numerous proteins. Small nuclear RNA (snRNA) molecules bind to specific proteins to form a small nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex (snRNP, pronounced "snurps"), which in turn combines with other snRNPs to form a large ribonucleoprotein complex called a spliceosome. The spliceosome removes introns from a transcribed pre-mRNA, a type of primary transcript. This process is generally referred to as splicing. An analogy is
Research
7,653 papers- Spliceosome structure and function.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2011
- A day in the life of the spliceosome.Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology · 2014
- Mechanism for the initiation of spliceosome disassembly.Nature · 2024
- Decoding Spliceosome Dynamics through Computation and Experiment.Chemical reviews · 2025
- Connecting genotype and phenotype in minor spliceosome diseases.RNA (New York, N.Y.) · 2025
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Article
9 sectionsContents
- History
- Composition
- Alternative splicing
- Location of splicing
- Assembly
- Minor spliceosome
- References
- Further reading
- External links
A spliceosome is a large ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex found primarily within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells. The spliceosome is assembled from small nuclear RNAs (snRNA) and numerous proteins. Small nuclear RNA (snRNA) molecules bind to specific proteins to form a small nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex (snRNP, pronounced "snurps"), which in turn combines with other snRNPs to form a large ribonucleoprotein complex called a spliceosome. The spliceosome removes introns from a transcribed pre-mRNA, a type of primary transcript. This process is generally referred to as splicing. An analogy is a film editor, who selectively cuts out irrelevant or incorrect material (equivalent to the introns) from the initial film and sends the cleaned-up version to the director for the final cut.
However, sometimes the RNA within the intron acts as a ribozyme, splicing itself without the use of a spliceosome or protein enzymes.