Exosome (RNA degradation machinery)

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The term exosome is used for a macromolecular complex that degrades mRNAs. Like the proteasome it exhibits a barrel-like architecture that appears to have evolved to restrict substrate access and prevent indiscriminate degradation.

The exosome was discovered as an RNase in 1997 by Mitchell et al..^[1] Since the concept of the exosome as a proteasome equivalent for RNA degradation was first envisioned, structural studies have shown that the two complexes share architectural similarities.

[edit] References

1. ^ L. Mitchell et al. (1997). "The Exosome: A Conserved Eukaryotic RNA Processing Complex Containing Multiple 3′→5′ Exoribonucleases". Cell 91 (4): 457-466.  [1]