Give me an intron: any intron.

摘要

The discovery of introns in the late 1970s by Dr Phil Sharp and Sir Richard Roberts was, at the time, a surprising twist to gene organization. Expecting gene sequences to be continuous and then discovering a significant amount of transcribed DNA not present in the mature RNA transcript caused an early reference to introns as the "junk" DNA. The junk reference implied that introns were a remnant of molecular evolution with no function odier than to consume energy as the cell transcribed the necessary sequences for the mature RNA.Some 35 years later, introns are many things, but any reference to junk DNA should be gone.4 The more we learn about introns, the more we can be amazed at their diverse roles. Introns can facilitate gene rearrangement, increase protein diversity, house genes within genes, and control expression at many different levels.