A GENE that regulates our blood pressure has revealed one of the secrets of 鈥渏unk鈥� DNA.
Most genes include both 鈥渆xons鈥�, the chunks of DNA that carry the instructions for making proteins, and stretches of DNA called 鈥渋ntrons鈥� with no obvious purpose. Before proteins are made, the introns are eliminated and the exons spliced together.
Now a German team has shown that repeating stretches of DNA in the introns from the gene for an enzyme called nitric oxide synthase are vital for splicing. 鈥淲e think it鈥檚 where a protein docks to help eliminate the intron,鈥� says Albrecht Bindereif, head of the team at the University of Giessen, whose results will appear in Nature Structural Biology.
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