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RNA Processing and Splicing Questions and Answers

1.

RNAs that catalyze biochemical reactions such as self-splicing nitrous are known as :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2018, SET Exam - 2018,

Answer: C

Catalytic RNAs are known as ribozymes.

Thomas Cech showed in the early 1980s that the group I intron of Tetrahymena rRNA splices itself out with no protein enzyme, and Sidney Altman showed that the RNA of RNase P cuts tRNA precursors; they shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The peptidyl transferase that forms peptide bonds in the ribosome is also an RNA, so ribozymes are central to life. (The paper's 'self-splicing nitrous' means self-splicing introns.)

Spliceosomes are complexes of RNA and protein that splice nuclear pre-mRNA. Mature RNAs are processed transcripts in general, and lariats are the looped introns released by splicing, not the catalysts.

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Answer: A

The minicircles encode guide RNA (gRNA) molecules involved in the RNA editing of maxicircle cryptogene.

The mitochondrial DNA (kinetoplast DNA) of Leishmania and trypanosomes is a network of a few dozen maxicircles and thousands of minicircles. Maxicircles carry the mitochondrial genes, but many are 'cryptogenes' whose transcripts cannot be translated until uridines are inserted or deleted by RNA editing. The short guide RNAs that template this editing are encoded mostly by the minicircles.

Minicircles carry no cryptogenes of their own to edit, which rules out option B, and their products are guide RNAs, not microRNAs or unspecified noncoding RNA.

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3.

Which of the following sn RNAs pair to form the catalytic active site during pre-mRNA splicing ?

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: A

The pair is U6-U2.

During spliceosome activation, U4 snRNA, which holds U6 in an inactive base-paired form, is released. U6 then pairs with U2, which is itself paired with the branch-point region of the intron. The U2-U6 structure, with bound metal ions, forms the catalytic core that carries out both transesterification steps of splicing; the spliceosome is therefore a ribozyme.

U1 pairs with the 5' splice site early on and leaves before catalysis, and U6-U4 is the inactive pre-catalytic pair. U5 holds the exons in place but does not pair with U4 in the active site.

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4.

A transcription unit is 8000 nucleotides long. If only 15% of this unit is exon, calculate the approximate molecular weight of the protein encoded :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2020, SET Exam - 2020,

Answer: C

The protein is about 44 kDa.

Only the exons are translated. Three nucleotides code for one amino acid, and an average amino acid residue weighs about 110 Da:

\[ \begin{aligned} \text{exon} &= 0.15 \times 8000 = 1200 \text{ nt} \\ \text{residues} &= 1200 / 3 = 400 \\ \text{mass} &= 400 \times 110 = 44000 \text{ Da} \end{aligned} \]

1200 kDa mistakes the number of nucleotides for kilodaltons. 40 kDa uses 100 Da per residue, and 100 kDa ignores the fact that only 15% of the unit is exon.

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