Gene Splicing - Other Splicing Events

Splicing can also involve molecules other than mRNA. tRNAs, which play a crucial role of aligning amino acids along a protein being synthesized can undergo splicing. tRNAs are encoded by DNA just like all other RNA molecules. However, tRNAs have a unique structure and function distinct from other RNA molecules in that they are responsible for matching the actual protein building blocks (amino acids) from the encoded nucleotide sequence to build a protein, or polypeptide. Since these specialized RNAs have unique conformations, enzymes that join exons after intron removal differ from those that join introns in other RNA molecules. While introns are removed, and exons are joined, the enzymatic molecules are not the same as those used for mRNA processing. Intron removal in tRNA processing is less dependent on internal intron sequences compared to other RNA introns.