I can't seem to find a good "simple" explanation of the functional and evolutionary importance of introns, and alternative splicing. Anyone know a good source for this?
Introns - Functional and evolutionary importance
- Thread starter slinquii
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Ill give this one a shot.
Introns and alternative splicing are important because they allow for different mRNA sequences and ultimately a greater variety of proteins through translation. Without introns or alternative splicing, there would be less protein variability. Essentially, introns and alternative splicing are the most efficient way to generate a wide variety of proteins through the use of mRNA (easy to manipulate) compared to modifying preexisting proteins (doable but energetically expensive).
Introns and alternative splicing are important because they allow for different mRNA sequences and ultimately a greater variety of proteins through translation. Without introns or alternative splicing, there would be less protein variability. Essentially, introns and alternative splicing are the most efficient way to generate a wide variety of proteins through the use of mRNA (easy to manipulate) compared to modifying preexisting proteins (doable but energetically expensive).
This pretty much covers what you have to know ^. Also know the mechanism of splicing of introns. That just basically comes down to using snRNA/snRNP to form a spliceosome complex to excise the intron lariat loop. Your cell bio class may go into a bit more detail than that but I think that should be adequate enough to know for the MCAT.
