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Introns are known to be a common source of canonical microRNAs. Recently, Introns have been shown that they can also encode a separate class of miRNA precursors, mirtrons, (Ruby et al. 2007, Nature 448; Okamura et al. 2007, Cell 130) that bypass drosha processing. The research shows that the Drosophila and C. elegans mirtron pathway merges the splicing/debranching pathway with the dicing pathway to generate functional microRNAs.Since the key parts of this hybrid small-RNA pathway are deeply conserved mechanisms for RNA processing, it seems plausible that mirtrons may exist outside these two organisms.
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