Practice question

Eukaryotic protein-coding genes often contain non-coding intervening sequences interrupting coding potential. Philip Sharp and Richard Roberts discovered split gene organization in adenovirus and cellular genes, revealing primary transcripts contain introns removed by spliceosome. Interrupted or split gene refers to locus where exons encoding mature mRNA segments are separated by intronic DNA that is transcribed but excised. This architecture permits alternative splicing, exon shuffling and regulatory intronic elements. Bacterial genes generally lack introns, making split genes hallmark of nuclear genomes and some organellar genomes.