Fedorova Olga, Zingler Nora
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
Biol Chem. 2007 Jul;388(7):665-78. doi: 10.1515/BC.2007.090.
Group II introns are large autocatalytic RNAs found in organellar genomes of plants and lower eukaryotes, as well as in some bacterial genomes. Interestingly, these ribozymes share characteristic traits with both spliceosomal introns and non-LTR retrotransposons and may have a common evolutionary ancestor. Furthermore, group II intron features such as structure, folding and catalytic mechanism differ considerably from those of other large ribozymes, making group II introns an attractive model system to gain novel insights into RNA biology and biochemistry. This review explores recent advances in the structural and mechanistic characterization of group II intron architecture and self-splicing.
II 组内含子是存在于植物和低等真核生物的细胞器基因组以及一些细菌基因组中的大型自催化 RNA。有趣的是，这些核酶与剪接体内含子和非 LTR 逆转座子都具有共同特征，可能拥有共同的进化祖先。此外，II 组内含子的结构、折叠和催化机制等特征与其他大型核酶有很大不同，这使得 II 组内含子成为一个有吸引力的模型系统，有助于深入了解 RNA 生物学和生物化学。本文综述探讨了 II 组内含子结构和自我剪接的结构与机制表征方面的最新进展。
