Do genes-in-pieces imply proteins-in-pieces?

Transfer RNA genes in pieces.

The short genes encoding transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules are highly conserved in both sequence and structure, reflecting the central role of tRNA in protein biosynthesis. The frequent occurrence of fragmented intron-containing tRNAs that require processing to form contiguous molecules is therefore surprising. Recent discoveries of permuted and split tRNA genes have added to the apparent creativit...

Discovery of RNA splicing and genes in pieces.

The Problem: Short-Lived Heterogeneous Nuclear RNA During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a major conundrum in eukaryotic molecular biology regarding the synthesis of mRNA in animal cells. Pulse and pulsechase radio-labeling experiments with tritiated uridine had shown that a large fraction of nuclear RNA was degraded very rapidly after synthesis, whereas only a small fraction of the initially s...

Two Pieces by Dewey 1 Running head : TWO PIECES BY DEWEY Reflections on Two Pieces

Transfer RNA genes in pieces are an ancestral character.

randau & Söll (2008) suggest that the anticodon loop region of transfer rNa (trNa) genes is the target site of a huge variety of mobile genetic elements and that this resulted in the evolution of trNa genes in pieces. they therefore suggest that the presence of introns in the anticodon loop might not be a plesiomorphic trait that is important in trNa origin (Di giulio, 2006), but an acquired tr...

Focus: Missing Pieces

Stem Cells and Cancer: The Medical Mystery of the 21st Century Cancer, which is characterized by abnormal cell proliferation that leads to uncontrolled tumor growth, is a leading cause of death worldwide (7.4 million deaths in 2004). Scientists have focused on the biological mechanism of tumor formation in an attempt to develop well-informed, effective cancer treatments that slow or halt the pr...