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. 1993 May;2(5):697–705. doi: 10.1002/pro.5560020501

The curious case of protein splicing: mechanistic insights suggested by protein semisynthesis.

C J Wallace 1
PMCID: PMC2142502  PMID: 8495192

Abstract

The gradual accumulation of examples of protein splicing, in which a nested intervening sequence is spliced out of the interior of a polyprotein precursor, suggests that this curious phenomenon might prove to have universal phylogenetic distribution and biological significance. The known examples are reviewed, with the aim of establishing underlying patterns, and a generalized mechanism of autocatalytic protein splicing is proposed. The testable consequences of such a proposal and the possible evolutionary origins of the phenomenon are discussed.

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Selected References

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