Some of the protein introns have en-donuclease activity and the DNA fragmentscoding for protein introns have defined a newkind of mobile genetic element.
The comparison of homologous protein and phyogenetic tree of inteins suggest that the evolution of inteins should combine two causes: lateral transmission and inheritance.
Intein is a self splicing protein and can excise itself from the host protein and at same time splices/joins then the two flanking host protein sequences,named the extein by a normal peptide bond.
Furthermore, our observations reveal an intriguing distinction between the distributions of ribosomal protein and non-ribosomal protein intron lengths, suggestive of distinct, gene class-specific evolutionary pressures.
Protein splicing is a posttranslational process that results in excision of an internal protein region (intein) and ligation of its flanking sequences (exteins).
Protein splicing is a post-translational autocatalytic process that results in the excision of an internal peptide (the intein) from a precursor protein and the ligation of the flanking protein sequences (the exteins).